Okay, so I cut the cat scene. It wasn't all that exciting anyway, and I reeeally need to get the plot moving in this thing. I got all caught up in providing reasons for all the changes wrought in Rephina's character by the war and...um...forgot about plot and stuff. I'm such a character nut. God, Fetchie, if you're going to analyze, use somebody more people know! (Like Miguel?...sweatdrop...okay, so people may know Miguel, but aside from DS groupies who really ever tried to do an analysis? Oh, and those of you who have, how's mine?)
Ghosts, chapter 3
"Where's the scarf?" the girl asked innocently. Caught in the act, the young man feigned ignorance.
"What scarf? I don't remember any--"
"I gave it to you," she replied, downcast and disbelieving. Surely, her eyes pleaded, you haven't forgotten already! "What happened to it?"
"Oh, that scarf. I tossed it away."
"You...you what?" She wavered on her feet, was caught by the young woman.
"Easy. Easy. He just gave it to me." She produced the sought-after object from her handbag and waved it in front of the girl's face while scathingly glancing at the boy. "And he has a very mean sense of humor."
"Who's making jokes? I don't make jokes. She asked where it was, I told her. Simple enough."
"Hardly." The older woman cradled the younger, eager for consolation, in her embrace. Along the path, the girl's elder brother came running up to see what had made his precious sister seek comfort; he grabbed her from the young woman and pressed her close to himself instead. The girl let the transfer take place, but looked longingly over one shoulder at the disconcerted woman. She did not understand her brother's mistrust of her friends. She did not understand mistrust at all. Her friends could have written an encyclopedia on the topic, but she didn't know that about them either. Had she taken the time to think about it, she would have discovered that aside from their names, she knew very little about her two companions--their pasts, their reasons for wanting to always be by her side--everything remained a mystery.
It seemed natural to her, not knowing about others. After all, what did she know about herself?
o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
"DILANDAU-SAMAAAA!"
The cry ripped itself from his raw throat, stung his eyes with tears and jolted him back to wakefulness; the world lost its reddish tinge and regained normality. His own shadow stared at him from across the darkened cabin; beneath him the convoy's timbers creaked in the nighttime winds. Another dream, the third since Dryden had left him...or was it only the second? The first time had been real, hadn't it?
It still didn't feel real, didn't seem possible that he had stood at that very window and watched the dragon--that same monster who'd captured him, broken his guymelef and robbed him of both his escape route and his self-respect--cut down, one by one, the boys who until recently had been his comrades-in-arms. How could Fate have been so cruel? Such coincidences just weren't possible. And yet...
He could still smell the tangy fumes of the burning crima, still feel the glass of the window pressed against his suddenly sweaty palms. Faintly he'd heard the two women talking--the beast and the Mystic Moon bitch--and he'd wanted to jump through his window and push them both to the rocks below. The cat had been dancing for joy. While on the battlefield below, fourteen of the most precious people in the world to him had had their young, brilliant lives mercilessly snuffed out by a killer too irresponsible to return to his desolate kingdom in its time of need. And he, like the dead soul they believed him to be, could only watch from above, unable to even shout a warning. The only sound he had made, ultimately, had been torn from his vocal cords involuntarily as he saw the white menace prepare a killing blow over his lord.
The dream always ended there--with the dragon readying its sword and his commander reduced to cowering. Over and over, he called out the name of the one man left whose opinion mattered to him, not caring that the inside of his throat grew slick with the scent of iron. He still didn't know what had stopped the white murderer, stained it a fitting shade of black, and finally toppled it. Of course, the pilot still hadn't died--he possessed an annoyingly large share of luck, or resilience, or some mystical dark magic guaranteed to save him at the last minute. So he still walked free. While Miguel was confined to his room, unable to fulfill his duty to the fallen.
Damn Dryden and his fiancee! Why had she of all people had to show up to ruin his life yet again? Despite the presence of a Zaibach soldier on his ship, the merchant had let the princess's companions--included the hated dragon, apparently injured--board as well, then had had the gall to insist he, who had been there first, stay out of sight. "Don't want to cause a stir," the man had said, arms up carelessly as if to add "What else can I do?" to his sentence. Still feeling a bit indebted, he had done as he'd been told and sat, squirming with frustration, in his room. When he finally couldn't take it any more and tried the door, it had refused to open. Locked or jammed, it didn't matter. He was trapped, with the Enemy only paces away.
And now he was bound not for Zaibach but for Palas, hopefully with the intent of procuring a transport home from there--not that the odds of that were particularly stellar given the recent events in Freid. Dryden had promised to pay for his passage back and provide him with a living, should he be temporarily stuck in Asturia. But he didn't want the man's favors. He wanted him to fulfill the godsdamed promise he'd made in the first place, instead of jetting off with Miguel's nemesis to parts unknown. So now that Dryden had a new toy, the one he picked up in the streets of Godashim didn't matter? He'd been a fool to believe all that stuff about how the man cared about him. First and foremost, Dryden was a merchant; he'd put his own interests first and side with the people who had something to give him. That was how merchants worked; he'd heard enough mealtime treatises in the mess hall, courtesy of the girl and her cousin (and occasionally the cousin's best friend, who had a bit of a dramatic streak) to understand that such people had abaci in their heads instead of brains. Idiot. Idiot, to believe in the man. Only one man on Gaea should have been worthy of trust. You've failed him again, like you failed them all by just standing by.
Why had he just stood and watched at the window? He should have knocked the door down, or at least tried to escape the minute his unit had arrived. But no, he had frozen. Like some sick, twisted violence addict, his eyes had tracked each movement of each melef, soaking in the bloodbath completely blank-brained. It could not have been real. They were Dragonslayers. Dragonslayers didn't die...except for Miguel, the incompetent one. The failure who let his friends die right before his eyes and didn't even feel anything until it was too late. Then he'd screamed; then his head had been swallowed with a dull roaring sound; then he had woken up to Dryden standing over him, letting him know there'd been a change of plans. And so here he was. Alone, except for the dreams.
Gods, it was cold on the convoy at night. Why, the chill was making him shiver. He had to get up, move, stretch his injured leg. He had to do something!
But the time for action had passed. Closing his eyes again, he tried to push away his thoughts the way his eyelids could push the world away. He would hide in the dark until...no, he would never hide again, he was through with hiding! Whether behind a stealth cloak or a wooden door, he always seemed to be shielding himself from the rest of the world. He didn't have that luxury anymore.
Which left him with forming a plan of action. There wasn't much to think about; the plan wrote itself automatically. He had to meet up with his captain again, now that he was the only Dragonslayer left. He might never be forgiven for his failures, but at least he was still breathing--though admittedly not without difficulty. And as long as he lived, he had a chance to fix that life.
"Dilandau-sama," he repeated hoarsely, more softly this time, focusing on his goal. There was nothing he could do for the dead but remember. From now on, his focus had to be on the living. "Forgive me. I swear...I'll find you."
o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
Kneeling on the cold floor, she avoided her commander's eyes, dreading the report she would soon have to give but knowing it was inevitable. Best to just start, then.
"General Adelphos. I searched for survivors, as per your orders. There were none." She hadn't expected there to be; not after what those alliance dogs had unleashed. Pure happenstance had saved her from the explosion: she'd been locked in combat just outside the valley Basram had decimated. She was still trying to sort out in her head exactly what had happened after that brilliant light tore open the sky. Something about a green haze...a voice shouting in her communicator that the battle was ended, no, the war...but she kept attacking and attacking anything that got in her way, free to ignore commands for some reason...free to do whatever she felt like...and then the mist in her mind had cleared and her captain's voice barked her back to reality. Then the patrol..and then the discovery. She shifted her weight from one leg to the other in her kneeling bow, grinding her feet into the dust on the once-spotless leviship bridge. Things like maintenance slacked off after half the ship had been blown completely away.
The general sank even lower into his chair. "I see. Such is war. Is there anything else observed which merits reporting?"
She'd intended to say no, to keep her find to herself, but the secret was slowly eating its way through her body and if she didn't let it out of her mouth, she feared it would devour her completely. "Sir...Captain Albatou's guymelef was discovered, completely wrecked."
"So even he fell." Adelphos sighed; though known widely for his disgust of the other man's tactics, he had been forced to acknowledge the maniac's skill. "Was his body reclaimed?"
"Sir, there was no body. The cockpit was empty. He abandoned his machine." He ran away. Again. "I landed to perform a more thorough search of the area and found this on the ground." She tossed a bundle of golden fragments at the general's feet. "Apparently he discarded it when he made his retreat." Among the broken pieces of yellow metal, a purple gemstone glinted. She wanted to throw it out a window.
"Albatou's headpiece..." The general picked up the shard containing the stone, examined it. "Any clues how it came to be broken?"
Her cheeks flushed; she bowed her head lower, tempted to lie but also somewhat proud of her actions. "Yes, sir. I...stepped on it, sir."
"From the looks of it, you stomped it into the dust," he mused. She bit her tongue. So she had ground the hateful thing beneath her heel. In retrospect, it was a silly act, expected of a slighted child but not of a lieutenant in the Zaibach Imperial Army. But she couldn't have left it there either, shining smugly in the dirt amid streaks of charred rock where another melef, presumably, had met a rather fiery end.
The general sighed again. "Lieutenant Jetura...you were stationed on the Vione with him, were you not?"
"I was placed aboard for my uncle's piece of mind, as my cousin was made a Dragonslayer. After his defeat at the hands of Fanelia's king, my services were no longer needed there and I requested transfer to a place where I could actually be of use to my country," she spat, not bothering to temper her venom anymore. In reality, she didn't give a damn about being useful to the country. Being useless when her cousin had needed her...she had transferred to prevent repeats of such an occurrence. Or at least that was the mantra she recited to herself.
Adelphos sat up a little straighter at her words and the tone of her voice, scrutinized the young woman in front of him. "Stand, Lieutenant Jetura."
She obeyed but kept her eyes low, suspicious. Her frame shook slightly, but she forced her body erect, shoulders thrown back with carefully construed arrogance. She could only imagine how she looked to the man: on the tall side for a woman, honey-blond hair pulled rigidly into a high ponytail yet with two locks of hair swinging loose to obscure her face from view. Distinguished in her orange armor, battered sword hanging at her side despite the absence of enemies, hands clenched into fists to absorb the energy channeling through her form as she battled her constant inner foe, impatience. If she held her head up, the violet jewel bound around her forehead would likely reflect the blue torchlight and glitter in much the same fashion as did her violently blue eyes.
"How old are you, Lieutenant?"
"Nineteen, sir." Where was he going with this?
"You have not been with the army long."
"I entered at my current rank due to the unique situation surrounding my Guymelef."
"Yes, the supposed Ispano modifications. Well, that rumor seems to have held up under fire. You performed admirably in this last battle, Lieutenant. That is why I feel I must bestow upon you an extra task." His brow furrowed, conflict flickering across his pale, weathered face. "Assuming you wish to remain with the military."
"Sir?"
"Come, Lieutenant. You have fought with a tenacity admirable in the best of men, but with your cousin gone you have no reasons to remain with us, and you are a woman. The men do not like having a woman on their level."
"You're...saying you will not press charges if I want to leave?" Yes. Gods, yes. Deliver me from this hellhole. Offer me a way out with my dignity intact. I've seen enough death for one lifetime; I can't be free here, tied to war and decay. Get me out of this swamp, where the things keeping me going are also what I most despise.
"I am saying that, should I give you this task, the minute it is completed you are free to resume a civilian's life. No officer or footsoldier will have the right to speak against you for your decision."
"The assignment, then?" Her armor began to physically chafe with her restlessness.
"This is not easy for me to say, but...you were not on good terms with Captain Albatou?"
What? Back to him? No, no, I can't take this. "We rarely spoke," she replied stiffly. "I do not know what his opinion was of me."
"You do not give your own."
"Is it relevant, sir?" Perhaps that was too harsh. But really, she hated confronting the mess that man had made of her life on her own; to be forced to admit it to her commanding officer, the only vestige of authority Zaibach maintained would be tantamount to suicide. She'd make it so and slit her own throat before admitting everything that had happened.
"It may be. Lieutenant Jetura, before I issue the orders I intend, I must know. What is your opinion of Captain Albatou?"
A bestial growl escaped her full lips, twisting her face before she could catch herself. Then the mask fell back into place, and in a tone completely devoid of feeling she reported plainly, "He disgusts me."
"Might I ask why?"
"He let his entire unit be slaughtered by a single opponent and, when given a chance to avenge the deaths, chose instead to save his own life. He pretends to be a paragon of excellence but instead clings to cowardice and codependence on others to maintain his own identity and reputation." She swallowed. "Sir, had Dilandau Albatou been discovered injured in his ruined melef I do not know whether or not I would have saved him."
"I see." Adelphos breathed heavily. "Then this order will not be as hard to take for you as I had feared. In light of the disasters recently befalling our country, the military is all that is holding the empire together at present. For a captain of that army to abandon his people and his duty is inexcusable, and I have not been blind to his other failings as well, but merely incapable of disciplining him further. Now I fear there is nothing to be done. At any rate, he is a symbol to the other nations of Gaea of all that is wrong with Zaibach. His violent and overreactive actions, especially as concerns maneuvers against Fanelia, have marred our reputation and must be punished accordingly. Lieutenant Jetura, effective immediately, your only orders as a member of this army are: find Dilandau Albatou and relieve him of duty. Permanently."
"You mean inform him of his court-martial?" He couldn't mean what she thought. It was unthinkable.
"You're making me say it? Fine. Kill him. I want you to kill him. Then your duty to your country will have been discharged and you may live the rest of your life as you see fit."
"I understand, sir." But she didn't; at least, she didn't want to. A wall had been erected suddenly between her emotions and her comprehension. This was not happening. She had not gotten herself into a situation where she would have to see that man again...look into those scarlet eyes and then...
But she would be avenging Ryuon the only way she could, the King of Fanelia being beyond her power to handle; she knew better than to slay the leader of a country on a personal quest for retribution. She would finally get to see the man who had wrecked her completely get his due; Jeture knew she'd pondered it enough, alone in her barrack or her tent or even in battle, adding rage to adrenaline to fuel her combat. What's more, she would finally be able to leave. She'd always hated the army. That cursed man had enticed her into joining--into going out of her way to ensure placement--into killing everything good in her life for his sake.
So why should she be haunted now by those wide, staring eyes in her memory? Why regard them differently after months of bitter disillusionment? Hadn't she screamed at him when she was sure he couldn't hear her, separated by layers of rock and metal on the transport with the scientists? "Shut up! Shut up!" She had balked and nearly abandoned the transfer idea after learning he too would be leaving; "instability," the tactician had claimed. He was going to get help from the Sorcerers and then return. "Now you scream! Well, it doesn't do them any good now!" He had no right to fall apart in her eyes, though it only further proved his weakness in her eyes. It made her no better than him, and after months of gazing upwards in adoration, then squashing him beneath her foot like she'd just crushed his diadem, she couldn't bear to have to see him on her level. Well, he was below her now, wasn't he? Now he was a no one, a nothing. Unwanted. Prey.
She bowed to her commander. "I'll depart right away, then. Is there anywhere he would be likely to run?"
Adelphos harrumphed. "Use your judgment. But if I were you, I'd start in places you knew well."
"Then I am off to Palas." It made sense: a large city where a single war refugee could easily blend into the background, slip into a crowd unnoticed. But he didn't have her advantages; he hadn't been a merchant running around those bustling markets for three years. He didn't know the culture or the right places to stay or how to survive on his own. She would start the hunt there, then.
And if she didn't find him...she'd keep moving. City after city, country after country; all of Gaea would recognize the white Alseides as its shadow slipped across their horizons. They would look up and marvel at the machine, at the cheek of the pilot fool enough to abandon her stealth cloak, never knowing that within the cockpit, neck-deep in crima, sat a woman barely out of girlhood, wide-eyed and muttering to herself despite the anger festering in her mind for months on end.
"I can't do this...I can't do this...I can't do this..."
She couldn't. She wasn't ready. Not yet. But, she vowed as she strode purposefully out of Adelphos's chambers, by the time she found her quarry she would be.
And then she'd see how much of a coward he really was.
o0o0o00o0o0o0o0
a/n: So now they're set to meet up! Yay! Oh, and a new player may be added to the mix next time as well...I haven't quite decided how many Esca plot bunnies I want to take apart and stitch back together as a part of this...so there MAY be an appearance of a Handy Transporter Pillar Of Light (tm), complete with passenger, next chapter. But it's not who you'd think...
