Drunken Lullaby : An Erk and Serra Story:

Chapter 10: Just For

"I want to take his eyes out

Just for looking at you

Yes I do

And I want to take his hands off

Just for touching you

Yes I do

And I want to rip his heart out

Just for hurting you

And I want to break his mind down

Yes I do, Yes I do, yes I do

And I want to make him regret

Life since the day he met you

Yes I do

And I want to make him take back

All that he took from you

Yes I do."

-'Just For' Nickleback

Disclaimer: I do not own the songs I use except for the songs by Kuri and I do not own Fire Emblem.

LLLLLLLLLL

It was near the darkest hour of night, an unholy blight of darkness that caused even the most holy to tremble in their sleep from mere thought of waking at this accursed time. A certain shadow moved amongst the shadows calling them his brethren as if he were really one, moving languidly from darkness to darkness, seeming nothing more than a flicker of black in the night.

Stopping, watching a passing guard with a wary eye, the shadow knocked on a hidden door, a rhythm used as a pass code for entrance, the bouncer, a mean looking grunt under a noble's thumb opened the door to nothing but air, to only feel the caress of a cloak, hiding him from sight within the whispers of the zephyrs that embodied the deadly dealing night.

Within a room, after the door, one the cloaked shadow lifted a finger to enter, stood a rough estimate of nine-to-twelve men, each donning clothes that were more towards a rich merchant's wardrobe with a rough travel cloak. The shadow only grumbled incoherently as he knew any thief worth their salt, or rather any conspirator with brains, could tell that this bunch were still too flashy with their money. They weren't good shadows like he had always been. Pulling his cloak away to reveal lavender hair tied behind a dark violet bandanna, a scarred eye and cheek as he greeted the only man that concerned him. This was the D'Targnan compound for their servants, the bigger compound outside, behind the barred gates with the posted guards, was where the actual D'Targnans' lived.

"You called, Master D'Targnan?" Turning, his eyes adjusting to the candlelit room, a map on the table underneath a few items to keep from curling into itself, he instantly picked out the master conspirator. When Legault had first infiltrated the revolution, he had been questioned by D'Targnan himself. There were very few people that ever made Legault frightened, one he was living with, one was in front of him, and Nergal and his children didn't count since they were dead. And who knew where Jaffar was! The Angel of Death, though only at the age of eighteen when their campaign ended, had frightened the daylights often out of Legault.

He did not know how to describe his particular fear of the man, his eyes so dark and cold that it was almost like he was drowning in a pit of death if he stared, which he did anyway. He was of the same noble stature in the court of Ostia as the man before him and therefore found no reason to bow in front of such a despairing thing.

"We all did, Sir Legault." The sharply angled features of the Master of House D'Targnan frowned, curling into a disgrace towards the repungent thief that was only the means to an end. Once Legault's part was done, D'Targnan would have him killed after the takeover. The sharp-eyed man only looked disgruntled as another rebellious noble spoke up.

"Let's start then, Milord." Nodding, moreso for himself than the tiresome ire of the idiots surrounding him, except for two, Lord Raven of Cornwall, and Legault of the Talunis bitch, he started the meeting.

"As all of you have known, the priestess that the Sage Erk of Etruia has come back with, is not his wife due to the fiasco with Lady Priscilla of Cornwall in the Etruian Court about six years ago. Luckily for us, we have incapacitated the little cleric, and have decided to keep her here when our diviner finds out what we need to know." He didn't pause with his summary of the last few days events. Raven of Cornwall's dark eyes flinched at the mention of his sister's madness.

Priscilla of Cornwall had stayed in the Etruian court under the ideas of perhaps winning the hand of the soon-to-be heir, Erk, until she had been publicly rejected in front of the court. Lest to say, her insecurities in her fragile mind just added up to too much for her and she killed the Marquee's wife, Louise and a few of the more teasing nobles. Since, she had been locked away in the Keep of Cornwall near the edge of Ostia having been banished from the Court of Etruia by a heavy hearted Pent.

"What about the Sage?" Another piped in, a man from the House of Harbridge, only making a slightly shallow frown flicker in the man's eyes. He was more concerned with a simple little magic maker over a demon slayer which almost made Master D'Targnan let his dark laughter play their spines like the keys they were to his machinations.

"The Sage will be left alone. He has too much to contend with to pay much intention to us." He waived away the question with a nonchalance, an air that become very frightening once one got down to it, watching his dark eyes fall away into a mirthful thought of murder.

"What about the firebird?" Another, more concerned about the troublesome tactician, made the man of the hour frown heavily. His mirthful eyes gone away in the flash they had been flickering from his dark oculars. Somehow in someway, Seras Talunis de Ostia was their hugest obstacle in the revolution. In his view the woman was a spider, a leper to the wonderful throne of Ostia, spinning her web around every man in there.

In short, Master D'Targnan hated the woman and wanted her dead. No woman should hold a position of power due to his bigotry and biased view.

"We do not know. What is she planning Legault?" He turned towards the assassin who was standing idly in the background, as if making sure he could never be documented of taking a major role in their conspiracy. His scarred eye opened, showing an iris of milky white. Legault had his eye transformed from the normal eye it had been in a battle with another assassin that he called the Angel of Death. He had never mentioned anything more about the duel but he had lost his good nature if it was ever brought up.

The milky eye closed, back into it's secret pocket, hiding more by habit than truth. The strangest thing was that even when his eye had been stabbed, more nicked than stabbed, he could still see out of it. The milky white he had for a cornea was only scar tissue from the blade. He could still feel the blade slinking across his cornea tearing it open, tasting the coppery fluid that had run down his face. The duel had been a spar and that was more of a warning from the Angel of Death to not undermine his strength, his killer instinct.

As he thought upon the scar, he remembered his wife's view of the eye. She loved it. She didn't pity him or make him feel slightly less than he was for getting it. The firebird had thought it was beautiful, kissing his eyelid often during their bedtime enjoyments as if to remind him that painful scar along with the one in his heart were just the same to her even if he didn't have them.

He sighed, returning his heart to the plan that his wife had outlined lightly for him, making room for improvisation which was a good thing in battle tactics along with spy tactics.

"She is planning nothing right now. She's been reviewing maps and notes about the Marquee's troops from their last campaign. She's getting ready to have new drills set up. She has been spending time with the cleric, but I wouldn't think much of it. She prefers being alone than with company." His heart hurt a little as he knew that his firecracker of a wife actually loved having company, if it was pleasant enough, and to her, it was an awfully big deal when Serra ran, leaving her with a swooning Priscilla and a rather empty Erk. Pent having been the only other competently healer besides Canas, not having his eye inside his mind.

"Good. She doesn't suspect anything as of yet from your end." D'Targnan grinned, a lipless stretch of the lips that made fingers crawl up the spine telling Legault to beware even more from the sheer amount of malice within it, a malformed identity to a being closer to the supposed pivotal help than anyone thought. The former Black Fang member only knew that he hated the man almost as much as he hated being in court, which was a lot, minding his wife and making sure she never spread herself too thin with matters concerning others.

D'Targnan stopped his continuation when a servant, a haggard woman with a frown befitting a troll, much less a demon or an ogre, came over and talked with her lord in a hushed whisper. With a nod to the guards, a pair in the back wearing light armor and two swords, naming them sword masters, D'Targnan's maliciously evil grin transformed into a smile with teeth that looked as if they could cut bone from the flesh, snapping the precious marrow with a bite, a smile that stretched his fine cheeks and made him even more predatory-like in all senses.

One guard left out of a back door while the other went to the other door, the wooden barrier that had let the betrayer in the midst of a revolution of disgusting nobles left with nothing more than the intoxicating smell of poisoned power calling to them, a pursuit of life for nothing more than a title and money. An economical situation that Legault himself hated more than even his wife constantly putting herself at risk.

"Ahh! The diviner is here.." The master of the meeting turned towards the other door with a simply evil smirk, growing and decreasing each second before a cleric, a master inquisitor no doubt, stumbled in to only glance around the room with tired grey eyes and dark raven hair that was put into a messy night bun. She wore a simple tabard of grey and purple over a white chemise, a thumping of her hanging holy book at her side as she walked into the room, moving with no intention than a weariness in her to rest and get this over with.

"Lord D'Targnan's dark council, Master D'Targnan, what is it you wanted this late in the night?" She greeted the rich men, all looking pleased to see this woman with little enjoyment as if their revolution would be jeopardized. The woman herself seemed frightened of D'Targnan and yet she held herself well in the council room with a slight frown on her average aged visage.

Serra was dragged in, her feet lagging behind her somewhat half-awake lithe figure, held up by two of the burly guardsmen that were of no particular loyalty except to the glint of shining silver. The threw her, with enough force to jar a few bones in even Legault's body, at the feet of the demon constructor himself, grim smiles marking the selling of their souls as they backed away into the shadows of the other door where Serra had made her appearance from.

"We need you to divine the truth from a little runaway cleric." Legault frowned heavily as he watched the woman only glance at the abducted ex-cleric with little thought. She was devoid of emotion, a thing he never liked seeing in a healer or almost anyone in particular. People with any type of feelings were easier to predict than anyone else.

It was a trait he had learned from Seras all too well when she began teaching him a little of tactics and the use of psychology in the actual battles. Battles didn't just depend on skill, it also depended on your opponent's emotions. An angrier opponent was easier to defeat, a little hard but easier than an opponent who was always calm in the use of battle.

His moves were easier to predict, easier to avoid as he would tend to rush and use all of his energy while a calm man would be more reserve, more wild in his movements and much harder to foresee.

The cleric leaned down, no emotion or spark of recognition coming across her eyes as she placed the rune of truth upon the woman's half-awake brow, kissing it with the spell of St. Elimine, a teller of the truth. Once finished with the spell, she backed away, ordering the thrown rag doll, a tormented child upon the floor of the inquisition, to speak loudly and clearly.

"Speak your name." To make sure the spell was working, the cleric did the most basic of question of the spell, a question of identity. It was easy to screw up in some minor way while preparing the spell of inquisition. Some ingredients may get mixed up in the blue paste for the rune or the paste may have gotten too old. The only way to really check that the spell of truth was cast right was to ask a question of identity, something that was defining of oneself to speak.

"Serra De Ostia." The rag doll looked up from behind lank pink tresses, a look of indifference written upon her countenance telling of her bewitchment even more. The only other clue perhaps besides the nonchalant face was the glazed and pupil-less eyes, lost in a haze that was unconcerned with the reality she was currently in.

"Are you a sister to Hector De Ostia?" Serra felt as if she was wandering in a fog, locked away in her mind as she watched the meeting and heard the words she did not want to answer but the strangest of impulses compelled her to speak of the truth in her world of shadow and lies and light and hope. Her world was slowly being overcome by the strange voice she listened to unwillingly, whispering in her ears much like a snake in garden, hissing of its true purpose.

"He has claimed me as such." Gasps went around the entire table, silenced only by a look by the Mother, and the demon contractor, eyes of the darkest night's pitch, thrown towards all his followers with disdain. The only person who seemed unaffected was that pesky assassin of a noble, Legault De Fang but then again it was rumored that the man was not controlled by anyone unless he decided their whim was good enough.

"Are you married to Erk De Etruia?" The haze only got foggier in her mind as the question was asked in the darkness, the confusion that was around her, sleeping, dreaming, an image of a man with long purple hair that was majestic in all rights. She wanted to feel that hair within her fingers, and she knew that was what she had never felt. There in the darkness, she began tearing up for the man who her heart knew, who the questions were asking for.

"No."

"Is the boy a bastard?" The boy……….was she talking about that ray of light that she had given birth to? She must be since the words slipped out of her numb tongue, falling into the hiss of snakes and vipers moving in a den of warmth, ready to boil over in fighting and treachery.

"Yes."

"Are you a cleric?"

"Yes and No." This was different. Which was she? In the darkness, hands outstretched in her dream-like trance, eyes blurred to no lines above and beyond her senses in the dark haze that was her mind. Was she a cleric?

"What do you mean?"

"I was never exiled from my sisterhood. I am still a sister because of this however, I am not because of my having a child." She explained to the voice that stretched the words as if it were pulling string from a dismembered arm, placing it upon the violins of old. What was going on?

"Why are you here in Ostia?"

"I was summoned back to court." Ostia was the splendor of the world and yet she knew she would have never come back unless for the summoning order from Hector relayed through Erk. She felt the voice waver away into the darkness, causing her to blink the eyes in her mind, reverberating them to her body, blinking away at the scene of a woman kneeling close to her face with grey tired eyes and hard lines upon her face.

"That's all I can do, milord. Serra De Ostia, sleep now. St. Elimine may take your lying carcass in her bosom, for if she shows that love to you." The woman cast the sleep spell with the help of a wand hidden in her chemise. The sneering man, happy enough with the information turned towards his goons with a delightful smile.

"Put her back in the dungeon. Thank you, Mother Renisa." He motioned away at the mercernaries with little care on how they handled the now deep asleep liar, even leaving his back turned towards the slightly fearing Mother Renisa as she walked away, out of the wooden door that Legault had entered, to only start crying as she realized what she had done. "Let's get her to court, on the night of the Ostian Independence Ball. Then we can act on the revolution. Legault!"

The man continued on with his planning, a little more endearing than his plainly malicious smile with teeth that could frighten a child with dreams of centipedes and sharks. He called the ambiguous figure in the shadows, discovered from the darkness as all the members of the revolution turned to him.

"Make sure your wife stays her hawk eyes out of this. I don't know how she ever finds out unless the information goes out through you." The underlying threat went by unnoticed by most of the members, though the addressed assassin understood the unmentioned threat quite well. He would have to make sure his wife was even more protected or else he'd lose his heir.

Deftly hiding his true emotion of worry, he put on a face of calm reserve, one of cold facts, with his ambiguous smile in place, a double meaning, another lie that he and his wife had agreed upon.

"I am an outlaw by choice. My wife has estranged me from laying with her like a man and wife should that I have no motivation for speaking to her of this entire revolution. She has no control over a man that she can't keep in her bed." With that said, Legault's eyes glittered with the joyful mirth as D'Targnan grinned, the mouth of a shark reminding Legault that not all ogres are green and nasty. They're also some who are human.

"I see. Meeting adjourned."

LLLLLLL

The water dripped and the place around was cold. The dampness and gloomy cold draft that came in and out of the dungeons caused the guards to smile within their room, windows closed to show the inside of the dank prison cells with the stench of straw. The mold overpowering the senses with disgust and recoiling warmth as his stomach roiled and broiled amongst the edges of his sanity. A mere shadow of men, a group of burly savages with a smell akin to a dead carcass as the dungeon smell of their prisoners stayed within their clothes and slid out of their money much akin to poisonous slime, merged with the gray walled complex of deceit and insanity.

This was her world as she came to, pink hair askew, helter-skelter amongst the rubble on the floor that contained her castle in this dreamscape of lies and taint, a place of disdain and uncaring greed. For the first time since she had become a sister, before she ever met Erk, she became afraid, not just silly fright, but really fearing, stinking of the acrid scent with more power than any other stench within the immediate area.

"She's already a whore." The two voices continued their conversation with leering eyes towards her clothes, undressing her with the very tones they spoke of her with. It was true that she was a whore, giving her virginity to the man who was now heir to the country of Reglay, who had a son done with her.

"She has a bastard." She could feel her heart pound against the skin she wore, bruised and matted with a little blood, trying to escape the prison that St. Elimine had given her for her birth. She wanted to scream to do anything as she heard the men lean closer to her form, calloused fingers grasping her hair with their harsh tones, rough discoloration in the skylight of music.

"I say we fuck her."

"Hehhehehehheehehh……..Come here bitch." As one of them turned her around, Serra closed her mind away from the act, never reacting, never actually touching them. She was no longer this earth-bounded child of St. Elimine's, no longer the respectable woman she had tried to become after her first loss of innocence.

She was replaced with a doll for the time being.

LLLLLLLLLLL

A loud slam of the dungeon doors made the guards pay attention to the newcomer rather than their newest toy, the rag doll taken many times that night, ravaged with a complete waste of brutality. The person that entered was none other than a shadow, a brief milky eye coming out into view before it was closed showing the perfectly all right blue eye, the one not scarred.

His countenance was carefully masked so as to hide his care for the cleric in the corner, seeming to hide away from it all, a person of refuse waiting for the slaughter of her people, of her person, of her soul to be digested in the atmosphere of turmoiling distress and emotional discretion. Legault wanted to kill himself with anger and disgust. He had let this happen to her. His wife be damned! He cursed himself as he stared at the small frail woman that was being used by the manipulator his other half had always been, though his wife had been hysterical once they were alone after she had learned of Serra's kidnapping.

He had to contain his wife's anger and turmoil as she cried and wanted to fling herself from the balcony, wanting to kill herself for allowing this to happen, but then again, he wanted to do that as well as of this instant. Though he knew logically that he wasn't at fault for allowing this to happen, he wanted to attack everyone in the room when she had been brought in, dragged by the sword masters, holding her, mercenaries that were allowing their loyalty to be bought out by the man with the bigger purse.

Legault's mind processed his strategies that he would have done had he attacked when she was brought in. It wasn't good. There were four guards at the least within shouting distance that he knew of, even more, mattering upon how loud the men screamed. He could have taken down at least six of the nobles with throwing knives that his wife had given him, poisoned tipped so that the opponent would not get up again if the poison slipped into the bloodstream. The sword masters were probably quicker and he could tell by the sheaths of their weapons that they held silver weapons, the best that money could buy, except for his secret horde from his campaign days with his wife. They would hit him. Then there was the cleric to contend with and she was a wild card, though from her cowed expression towards Lord D'Targnan, she would have probably helped his enemies over him. There was still the sake of Serra's life in the balance along with his. Serra would die before he could save her.

The odds had not been that good at all. He knew that he would not have any chance of getting away with both of their lives. He would be with all luck if he escaped with shallow wounds. The last number that equated in his logical strategy was that Lord D'Targnan had his demon within calling distance, unless they were linked by their minds.

It was a good thing that he was patient, maybe a little too patient, but it was a virtue, a necessity in this world of gray shadows and useless broken dreams.

"What happened?" His voice echoed within the room, harsh and reprimanding of the men, the disgusting slime of mushrooms, of the black abyss that was the netherworld, catching their attention effectively. These men would pay. His mind's vow went affirmed with a tender touch to the bracers he wore, the ones with the tipped poison shurikins.

One had the audacity to grin, his arbitrary nature not that hard to be shown. They had both been of the Black Fang during the period of Nergal's power permeating the core of their one belief, their core religious precedent, a mandate once untainted due to the taint of the nobles that they were eradicating.

He could remember talking to the tactician of Bern, Remiel Talunis, the Unicorn tactician, as she was aptly called by the nobles, with her tentatively bubbly personality acknowledging his quest to restart his old home, the Black Fang. She had smiled with her bright blonde hair, the one she had gotten from his grandfather-in-law, waving in the wind of the patio. She had actually preferred having the Fang around as it was a way for her to make sure the nobles that were awful for the King to associate with, the ones that treated the peasants like insects to be killed, having a way to eradicate them with known evidence.

The other man, a slimmer savage, turned towards him as well, a frown marring his face. He had hated being under the Hurricane's thumb but they respected the known assassin.

"We had a bit o'fun, Hurricane. Maybe we can one day get that firebird that you call a wife in here. Teach her a few new 'strategies'." The whimsical bigger man let out a grin as he gestulated with his digits the exact type of strategies the man had been speaking of. Legault had to double check his skin for the merest twitch of anger at such suggestions about his wife to two nothings in men's skins.

His fingers caressed his two killing daggers that his wife had nicknamed lovingly, a simple rhyme that she had always loved from her mother, Ko and Vo, Kutolah legends in song. He moved faster than either men could blink, the two killing gems against the skin of their throats, moving with a coldness that promised death. Beady drops of blood began to form along the blade, the skin rubbing softly to be cut as Legault spoke his warning, no emotion coming out of his heart, locked down as it was, ambiguous with a grin as commanded with no expectation of rejection.

"She is not to be violated again or your families or your particular interests at this moment will be brutally maimed."

When he left, both men held onto their necks with fright, dropped onto the floor with a surprising reaction as their fingers shook. Legault's order was not to be rejected.

LLLLLLLLLL

The suite had little calming effect on Erk as he had woken up from his position right by the door. It appeared that he had cried himself to sleep and had awoken to the voice of his seed, the bright eyed young child shaking him roughly, as if he had been doing this for a time now. Erk's eyes focused upon the child with a regret showing in the dark orbs, trying his best to not speak.

His heart was punctured with the words and commands that Seras had spoken, her voice resounding in his skull as he turned towards their windows to see that it was midday by now. The boy looked frantic, wearing a few more of the other belongings that Seras had willingly gotten from the seamstress.

"Dad? Where's mom? Is mom okay?" His tiny hands clutched Erk's tunic to him, showing the red blood of his torture upon his form. The fingers grasping into him dug deeper than the mere cloth. It grabbed into his heart and squeezed the already bleeding guitar, heartstrings twanging against the sorrow and despair he felt ravishing his mind with guilt. He shouldn't have let her go.

"I really don't know, Reka. I want her to be……" His mind mumbled, telling truth and lie all in one. He had an idea but he wasn't going to know anytime soon. He wasn't sure of anything other than the fact that he wanted to die over and over for the torn look of pure terror and fright that came over his son's visage, ripping apart the brightness for all it was worth.

He didn't know that he was crying, pouring out the sorrow of all the worlds through his torn and bleeding heart, wrapping him in a blanket of painted black masquerades and horrid twilight of uncertainty as he looked at the breaking child, the act of tears upon that face caused him to let out a torn sob louder than the terror between the two of them.

"Dad? IT's okay! She's going to be okay! You don't need to cry! Please don't cry……..please don't cry……" Surprised, Reka began holding onto his father's shaking chest even more, trying to gain a foothold within this tempest of a mood, wronged in himself as he felt his own body start quivering, falling away into the inevitable understanding, the unanswered question springing the unspoken truth to him. She was gone.

He didn't know where but he had to make sure this man didn't leave him too, didn't escape into the shell that man had once had on before they had met. Tears ran down his childish face, developing into a wet spot upon his father's tunic, a bond being formed as Reka promised himself that he would be there for his father. Erk's mind making the same promise as they let out a long cry of pure pain, twisted, sadistic pain, not lost upon the minds of those around them, especially a maid who had given the man's wife to her employer, a guilty and torn look upon her fragile face.

LLLLLLLL

Seras was resting upon the bed, trying her best to get her energy to hold out for the day. She was so tired of thinking, of being, sick with herself and everyone around her. Eyes closed, she felt the child kick lightly. This child was going to be like her husband, a nuisance and probably the only thing that would settle her down. She sighed, trying to get herself up from the bed, tears that had been leaked, dried upon her rosy cheeks, told her husband of her crying session when she settled upon the thoughts of Serra's whereabouts and health.

She felt that she was responsible, leaving the woman at the marketplace like that even when Seras KNEW that it was a bad idea, though Serra mentioned that she would be careful. She swore it.

A few more tears leaked out when she fell back onto the soft bed with little will to get up.

Legault watched her, a frown on his face. It was hurting him so deeply to watch her. He was never one for her crying or rather any woman crying, but his wife's tears caused him to go into hysterics sometimes. Sitting on the bed, weighting down the edge, letting her slide to him, his fingers grasped her hair, turning the smart countenance towards his deprived eyes.

"'Ras!" He whispered so as not to be overheard by any of the maids or anyone else. She blinked away her tears as she turned her body fully around, grabbing her husban's midsection, curling herself around his body with tears in her heart and eyes, relief washing through easily. He had been out most of the night after he was called causing Seras to feel her bond through the Afa's drops to feel taunt, stretched with effort to remind her of his presence.

The assassin's lips turned upwards in a saddened smile, one of appreciation when they held bad news to be said and given to others. His face was of no exception. His diligent fingers tentatively touched her face, wiping away the vestiges of absolute sorrow.

"Calm down. You're going to overexert yourself, wife. Good. First of all, she's not okay. D'Targnan has her and the guards have already taken one liberty with her. She's been raped. I made sure that it won't happen again though. There are a few new interesting things however. They had a diviner for Serra to know now that she's lying. They're going to bring her to court at the Ostian Independence Ball. They're also going to act on the revolution that night."

"Have they decided anything about Lyndis?"

"She's wasn't mentioned."

"What about Erk and Reka?"

"Too busy to care. What is going on your little mind, 'Ras?"

Her eyes had sharpened from the clouded features they had been with misty tears blocking the way much like a fog in the green woods of the earth. Her mouth flat lined upon her gentle face, creating a stern look of knowledge, a glint of strategy speaking through that lifted fog.

"We strike the same night, when they bring the charges up. Get our assassins ready. Alert Jaffar."

"But he's been missing for a few years hasn't he?"

"No. He's been hiring himself out."

"How do you know this?"

"Where do you think I go for company? As you know, you're not exactly the best company I ever have." She frowned, mentioning a barb towards her husband, unhappy with the fact that he was gone all night leaving her to herself and her overactive mind, the link between them nearly useless, just letting her know that he was living.

"Let me go get some ice for that burn from your wicked tongue. So is that what you did when she was captured?" Putting a hand on his heart, the one that beat so fast for the bird lying down around him as if to try and keep him with her whilst she stayed within their nest. He gave her a mock pained look, casting away with her words as simple as throwing away some of her burnt cooking. She was not a good cook.

"Yes. Jaffar understands the words of me getting in touch with Nino. He doesn't want her to know where he is. She'll leave his children and he had no choice but to leave. He's hunted still." He thought upon his neice-like friend. Nino, though young, had started a family with Jaffar to only have the dolt leave her after their twins were both five. He didn't know how serious their situation had been, but Jaffar never broke a promise to Nino before then and he knew that Jaffar only broke that one for his children and her own safety. He never thought of himself when it came down to his family.

"Poor kid. Nino hasn't had exactly a good life and he only made it harder for her."

"He knows. He doesn't want her in danger. Ask for Ferid. That's his alias as of right now. He'll do it when you tell him I ask it of him. He owes me a few favors and knows that I want them returned." A serious look passed upon his face as he thought of his wife's gentle brow being marred with blood. He had easily bypassed the guards that she had set by their door and that was NOT good. He didn't want anyone who was better at his job than him to get by and mar his wife with her own blood, leaving her to die.

"Who will guard you when I'm gone?"

"I'll have Destin stay with me most of the day, along with Rath." Seras had already come up with a plan. Rath was the most watchful of Lyndis's guards and he understood when to be completely silent, though they occaisionally had a few conversations in Kutolah. He was also trustworthy and if Lyndis didn't pose a problem to the D'Targnan man then it would be perfectly all right to ask for his help in protecting herself.

Destin was another story. She had to get something she dearly needed from her brother.

"Are you going to get his support?" His eyes questioned the sanity of his wife, bargaining herself and the lives of everyone around her as if they were nothing more than pieces of silver to be weighed upon the scales of fate. Her eyes spoke volumes as she closed them and opened them with a new determination, raising up on her hands from lying down, curled on her husband after his return like a contented cat.

"Yes."

LLLLLLLL

Okay, this is a rather short update! I didn't want to get too into the plot before any fluff came. Don't worry there will be some fluff up ahead. AND DON'T WORRY! SERRA GE-

Erk: Don't give away the plot!

Okay, anyway, PLEASE REVIEW! LOVES TO ALL!