Back again! OMG OMG OMG, I AM SOOOO SORRY! I really was gonna update quickly this time as I promised, but uh...something unexpected happened...A childhood friend of mine, Ozzie Vargas Jr. passed away in September...He was only 17 years old, but he's with Jesus now in Heaven. And I'm glad that he won't ever be in pain again. Ozzie has blessed me with his fun-loving, care-free personality and I can't wait to see him again one day when I get to Heaven too! I recommend all of you visit the link in my profile if you wanna know more about my friend Ozzie and about the way he lived his life. Anyway, here's the chapter you've been waiting for and I'm deeply sorry for the wait...
Chapter Thirteen
Two Pasts, One Island
"Would you wait up?" Blank said to Kaira, trying to keep up with her. "You know, it's a lot easier to rush somewhere when you can actually see where you're going!" Realizing she wasn't going to listen, he quit trying to catch up and just followed from behind. Kilala stayed behind with him, walking at a slower pace.
Once Kiri had gone on her way, Kaira suddenly seemed to be in a rush. Blank couldn't tell if maybe she just didn't wanna talk to anyone else after that or if maybe there was some certain place she was in a hurry to get to. A part of him in the back of his mind was hoping that maybe she just wanted to be alone with him, but he quickly discarded that idea.
He followed Kaira back toward the entrance to the village, and up a road leading behind the houses. Everything here was dirt, nothing paved. It was such a big difference from the big city Blank was used to. As he neared the top of the hill, he heard the whinny of a horse. What the hell? he thought to himself. Where does she think she's going?
She stopped at the top of the hill, allowing him to catch up with her. At the top was a large, open area, fenced in to make separate smaller areas. Horses were penned in here. Of course, Blank couldn't figure out what they would need the horses for since Kaira had told him the Gerudo were pirates.
"This is where I used to come when I wanted to be alone," Kaira said once Blank and Kilala had caught up. "The village always seems to have people out everywhere, but up here with the horses, I can have time to myself." She started walking again closer to the horses, Kilala following behind without a second thought. Blank was a little surprised that the tiny creature wasn't afraid of the huge beasts.
Blank and Kaira walked over to a wooden stage that was set up on one side of the huge field. They sat down without saying a word, Kaira just stared out at the horses while Blank watched Kilala run excitedly in and out of the horses legs.
"I'm surprised they still have her," Kaira said out of the blue. "I wonder if they gave her to someone else."
"Um, who are you talking about?" Blank asked, utterly confused.
"My horse," Kaira answered. "Her name is Fire Dancer." Kaira lifted her arm and pointed. "She's that one over...oh, I'm sorry." Kaira felt ridiculously stupid once she remembered that Blank couldn't see where she was pointing.
Blank just laughed. "Don't worry about it. What does she look like?"
"Well, she has beautiful red hair and she's slim and fit. Her tail is really long and she's so graceful." Kaira seemed in awe of the horse.
"So, she's exactly like you," Blank stated rather than asked.
Kaira was suddenly snapped out of her thoughts of the horse. Wait, I'm...What did he mean by that? I'm exactly like the horse? How so? Crap! What did I just say to describe her? Lets see...red hair...tail...graceful...okay, okay. Good. It's not as big a deal as I thought it was. ...wait, did I say BEAUTIFUL red hair? ...He thinks I'm beautiful? ...No! No, Kaira! Snap out of it!
Kaira shook her head, attempting to shake the thought from her mind.
"What's wrong?" Blank asked.
"Uhh..." Kaira stuttered for a moment. "It's just...this whole situation. Coming back here after so long. Everything being burned down by our leader." Good save, Kaira! He doesn't suspect a thing!
"Oh...yeah, I'm sorry about all of this. It's kinda my fault you're here. Baku sort of made you feel like you had to come. He does that a lot." Blank sighed. She didn't even catch what I said, did she? Damn, maybe I'm being too discreet about all this.
"Nikora was my adopted mother," Kaira continued what she had been saying, sounding more serious about it now. "She was the one who had saved me when I first showed up here." Kaira smiled at the memory of it. "I was seven years old."
"So these people were for you what Tantalus is for me," Blank replied.
"Yeah, I guess they were. My family."
"I don't understand why you left. You've made such a big deal about not wanting to come back here, but you haven't said anything about why."
Kaira smiled a little. "It's nothing. I wouldn't wanna bore you with a long sap story."
"I'm sure you can't bore me any more than Zidane can when he goes on and on about girls he knows nothing about. Now come on, talk," Blank urged her.
Happy that someone wanted to take the time to listen to her, and slightly turned on by his stubbornness, Kaira decided she'd finally share a little bit of her past with him. After all, that's what she had been wanting to do for a long time. Just to spend time with him and have a serious talk. Kaira, you're letting yourself get wrapped up in him, she told herself. Bad idea!
"A little over two years ago, our village looked a lot like it does now," Kaira started her story. "It makes me wonder if they ever took the time to clean up the mess from before. Anyway, I always hid my wolf-form from the people here. I hide it from everyone, afraid they'll think I'm some beast with fleas."
"You didn't hide it from me," Blank pointed out.
"Well, yeah, but...I guess I thought you could relate."
"I can...a lot," Kaira noted how sad he looked when he said that. "Sorry," Blank said after a pause. "Continue."
"One day..." Kaira began.
(Flashback)
A thirteen year old girl with red hair and black wolf ears slept soundly in her bed, the woman she lived with sleeping just down the hall from her. The only light outside came from the crescent shaped moon above them. It seemed to everyone in the little village like this night was just like every other night before it. But then...
Kaira was shaken awake suddenly by a loud thud and a howling noise. She sat up in her bed and peered out the window of her second story room. "Oh my..." the young teen exclaimed in shock. One of the houses in the village had somehow caught fire. She knew the lady who lived there: a woman and her son and daughter. Kaira's sensitive canine hears picked up another sound...a little boy was being ripped apart by numerous sets of teeth. A mother was crying in fear. A little girl wasn't making a sound...the dead usually don't.
"Kaira!" The girl suddenly heard her name uttered from the hallway. The woman she lived with hurriedly opened the door and rushed inside. "The village is being attacked!" The woman walked over to her and sat down on the bed. "I need to help the others, okay?" she said thoughtfully. "Promise me you'll stay here. Don't go outside!"
Kaira nodded her head, fear obvious in her eyes. The young wolf could sense something the others couldn't. Something was going to go horribly wrong for her today.
The red haired woman smiled at her beloved adopted daughter. "It's nothing we can't handle." The woman, who could have easily passed for the girls real mother as they had such a close resemblance, stood and headed towards the door. "I'll lock your bedroom door on my way out. Keep it locked." She shut the door behind her and Kaira was again alone.
The girl didn't move for a moment. At hearing the front door open, she peered back out her window and watched her mother run off to fight whatever it was that was attacking them. By now, three more houses were on fire. Little by little, the whole village was awaking to the cries of their people.
Kaira watched for a while as more and more people were fleeing their burning houses and flooding into the streets, only to find themselves amidst a pack of rampant wolves. Kaira wondered if all other wolves were like this. Would she be like this one day? She quickly shoved the thought from her mind.
Kaira was startled suddenly by a loud thud on the roof of her house. She glanced up at her ceiling, not that that was going to help. She stood from her bed, not taking her eyes from the ceiling. Thinking her own house had caught on fire from whatever had fallen on it, the girl unlocked her door and ran from the room, down the stairs to the first floor.
Crouching low as to not be seen by these strange attackers, Kaira peeked over the front window of her house to see what was going on outside. She immediately noticed her best friend Navrul in the middle of the street. She was badly burned and unable to stand from the bleeding in her legs.
Kaira's heart was racing so fast, she thought she was going to die of a heart attack. Terrified for her life, but far more terrified for her best friend's life, she did the first thing she thought of: she unlocked the front door and opened it to run out and help her friend.
Wait! she thought suddenly, a little too late now that she was already outside amidst all the mayhem. What am I doing? I can't fight them off! Maybe I... Kaira transformed into her wolf form, a glistening, black wolf with hypnotizing emerald eyes. The young, black wolf ran to her human friend and barked at the other canines around her. They barked back.
Navrul sat there in the street, petrified and confused. Why was this one wolf protecting her? Was she talking to the other wolves? Trying to convince them not to attack her? Navrul's spirits rose as it seemed to her like these wolves were actually going to listen to the black wolf who seemed oh too familiar to her.
"Get away from her, you bastard beasts!" A woman shouted, running towards Kaira, Navrul and the pack of canines. "Lay a paw on her and I'll knock your lights out!" Sure enough, that's exactly what the woman did. Next thing Kaira knew, she was flying threw the air after being smacked in the head by a snow shovel. Kaira didn't know what to be more confused about: Why these people were attack her rather than the enemy, or why this woman owned a snow shovel when she lived in the middle of the desert?
Kaira struggled to get back up, but was mobbed by fangs and claws. Luckily for her, the woman who had attacked her now became her savior. The woman beat back those wolves as she had Kaira.
"Stop!" Kaira yelled after she had changed back to her human body. "I'm not one of them. It's me! Kaira!"
"Kaira...?" the woman said in shock. "You started all of this? Why would you do such a horrible thing!"
"What?" Kaira and Navrul said at the same time.
"Mom, Kaira's not– " Navrul tried to speak.
"Get back, Navrul!" the woman said. "I knew you weren't trustworthy, wolf. Get away from my daughter and get out of here!"
Others on the street saw the commotion of the mother and daughter and were quick to lend a hand. Shouts came from every which way, giving Kaira far more bruises than any physical blow could. "Kaira, how could you betray us?" "We trusted you!" "I always knew you were trouble!" "We never should have given you a home, you selfish bitch!"
Eyes wide with fear, the young girl struggled for words as she glanced from person to person. "But...I..." These people were her family. She had loved them, and they had loved her...hadn't they? "You don't really...I would never...Navrul." Kaira wrapped her arms tightly around her best friend, as if to beg her for safety. The two girls clung to each other in fear.
"Mom, stop!" Navrul shouted at her mother. "Stop all of this! All of you!"
"Navrul..." Kaira's voice was barely audible over the sound of crackling flames and angry shouts.
"Let go of her, Navrul," her mother shouted. "She's a murderer and deserves to be treated as such!" Navrul's mother bent down and grabbed one of the two kneeling girls. She pried Navrul away from her beloved friend while the other villagers moved in to finish off the "traitorous" wolf.
Kaira gave one last pleading look to Navrul, a look that said, "I wanna stay with you, but I don't wanna die. I'm terrified for my life." A look that said, "I love you...and I'm sorry..." Kaira hastily changed back into her black wolf form and attempted to dodge the items being swung at her. She did fairly well and was able to free herself from the surrounding circle of attackers. She raced as fast as her battered limbs would take her towards the exit of the village.
As she ran farther and farther from her home, she winced as the sounds of the fires and the dying people steadily drifted further from her sensitive ears. Kaira hadn't kept track of how far she had run, or where she had run for that matter. She found herself on the beach, which wasn't a hard thing to do since this was an island. The small, black wolf collapsed onto the cold sand, panting in long, life-striving breaths. She closed her emerald eyes, twitching her fur covered ears with each crashing wave and each gust of wind.
Without a clue how long she had been laying there on the starry beach, Kaira lifted her head at the sound of very large footsteps behind her. Noting the familiarity in the steps, Kaira didn't alarm herself. She plopped her head back down and waited for the dragon to approach her.
"Kaira," the nineteen foot tall dragon called to his much smaller friend. He shape shifted into a wolf and slowly made his way to her side, sitting down once he reached her and staring out at the moonlit ocean. "You're not going back, are you?"
Kaira didn't answer. She stared out at the nothingness that was the ocean, unblinking, full of thought but no emotion.
(End flashback)
"Wait," Blank interrupted. "Draco can transform into a wolf too?"
Kaira looked at him a sighed. I pour my heart out to him and all he does is asks a question about Draco? "That wasn't suppose to be the point of the story, but yes. The Dragon of Neutrality has the power of shape-shifting. It makes him somewhat of a peace-keeper between all species."
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you."
"No, that's basically where the story ends. Kilala had followed me out of the village and showed up with Draco. The three of us left the village, traveled all over Gaia, and a couple years later ended up with you guys in Lindblum."
"So that's why you didn't wanna come back."
Kaira nodded, staring down at the dusty ground beneath them.
"I think it's good you came back. I mean, obviously some of the people here really missed you."
Kaira glanced up at him teasingly. "Would you miss me?"
"Eh...I...Of course, I'd miss you," Blank stuttered, feeling his heart about to beat out of his chest. "You're one of the few people who's actually treated me like a human being instead of some monster."
The two sat silently for a moment, not quite sure what to say or do. Neither one realized what had happened, but the next thing Blank knew his lips were pressed gently against hers. ...How did this happen? OH MY GOSH! Blank and Kaira both turned their head away from each other, both not able to hide their blushing faces. Did I do that or did she? I wonder if she liked it...I wonder if I liked it.
"I uh...I should probably get back to the others." Blank stood and made his way back towards the main village, away from the horse pens.
Did I do that or did he? Kaira thought to herself as she watched Blank walk away. I wonder if he liked it...I wonder if I liked it. Oh hell, what did I do! What was I thinking? I wasn't thinking! ...crap... Kaira stood and walked over to the fence where her horse Fire Dancer was kept. Kaira hopped over the wooden fence with ease and made her way to the beautiful reddish tinted mare. "You're lucky, Fire. You don't have to think about stuff like this," Kaira said as she rubbed the horse's face affectionately.
Back at the house that the group was staying in, the old woman from before who had led them here was sitting amongst the group, chatting about this and that. Blank walked into the house to find them awkwardly talking about Baku's sex life.
"So while I was in this position," Baku's strikes a pose. "She was down like th– "
"Did I walk in at a bad time...?" Blank asked, intentionally interrupting his boss whom Blank now had a totally different opinion of...at least until this image was out of his head.
"God bless you, Blank," Ruby said blandly.
"I'm...not even gonna ask how all that got started," Blank added, sitting down beside Marcus and Ruby.
"Well, I'm glad that you're back now, Ri...I mean Blank. After all, you're the reason you all came here, or so I've been told." The old woman frequently glanced at Blank's left arm and the strange, black dragon that flew on it unmoving. "I don't think I ever properly introduced myself. My name is Zayrrim Asakura. I'm one of three elders in this village. I believe I've already been introduced to all of you. Draco," the woman nodded her head politely to the dragon-in-human-form, "it's good to see you again, dear. You have been greatly missed."
The man nodded his head back and gave her a weak smile.
"Tell me, dragon, have you informed them on everything they should know? If you have, then they should have nothing left to question."
"I only told them what I knew for sure to be facts. I didn't want to accidentally tell him a lie." Draco was referring to Blank when he said this, and Blank knew it.
"I see..." said the elderly woman. "Come with me, Draco." The woman stood up from the group. "Pardon us, everyone. I apologize to you all, but I must make you wait just a little longer before I can give you the information you seek. Draco and I have matters that must be discussed." She motioned for Draco to follow, and the two left the stone house.
"...That was weird..." Zidane stated bluntly.
"Yeah..." Dagger agreed.
"Hey," Eiko chimed in. "Maybe they're plotting against us and the ladies here are gonna brutally murder us, and it was all Draco's job to lure us here!"
"..." Everyone stared at Eiko blankly.
"What...? It could happen..." Eiko's face turned pink as she pretended to look out the window and ignore the confused stares coming from all over the room.
A few minutes later, Zayrrim reentered the stone house with a grim expression on her face. Her face had been similar to this the whole time, but somehow, Blank thought her expression to be more dark now than it had previously been. He prayed to whatever god he could think of that he was wrong; but after the old woman spoke, Blank knew he was right. "Come, all of you...Blank, there's something I must show you," That was all Zayrrim said.
Kaira walked in the door moments later, glancing at everyone in confusion of why the old woman looked so down. The wolf-girl avoided eye contact with Blank, and noted that he was doing the same to her. Zidane also noted this fact...He made a mental note to question Blank about this later.
"Where did Draco fly off to?" Kaira asked the elderly woman.
"To fetch the other dragons."
"But why? Are we going to the temple?"
"...yes..."
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Man, I got a lot of work to do...I haven't updated any of my fan fictions in so long...oh well...
--singing-- Hi ho hi ho it's off to work I go... --sigh-- Please leave a review!