"If there's something strange, in your neighbourhood- who ya gonna call?
MAGU-" Oh. Wait...
My goodness I have had quite the fight with this chapter, and I honestly feel like it's been holding me back (hence the taking so long to post). It feels good to finally get this thing off my plate, though, and I'm much more excited for the chapters to come! Anyway, if you're looking for some wicked music to read to, check out the Crono Symphonic OverClocked Remix Album on youtube. It's an hour and a half of really epic orchestrated OST which I love much and recommend highly. I hope you'll enjoy it as much as I do!
'I ain't afraid of no ghost.'
"N-No, really," Lucca began for the third or fourth unsuccessful time. There was some attempt of apprehensive assertiveness in her voice, but it did little in helping her now; she was past the point of no return. "We couldn't possibly stay, we-"
"Of course you can! Just let me get you a few more blankets."
"B-But we-"
"Would you stop squirming about so? You'll drop those freshly pressed sheets! Here, take these pillows too."
Standing at the foot of the stairs- she had been so close to the front door, too- Lucca's urge to thoroughly smack herself was contained only by the fact that her hands were already weighed down with various layers of bedding. Watching the woman disappear into the closet for another round of her downy ammunition, the scientist could but cringe.
She had feared it would come to this.
"You'll need these," Crono's mom continued, reemerging and adding layer upon layer of blankets to the inventor's already teetering load. "I leave that window open to keep this sweltering house on the cool side, so an extra layer won't hurt in case you get cold. You girls can sleep down here, and the boys can take Crono's room. And here's a cookie."
It had grown dark, and with all natural adamancy, Crono's mother had insisted they stay the night. Now Lucca was a stubborn nut to crack when she had her mind made on a matter, and she took some small sense pride in that. But when it came to Crono's mother… well, pride be damned, but there was an almost non-existent line between choice and force with that woman. Somewhere between the blankets being thrown into her arms, having her mouth stuffed with 'a bed time snack' and still managing to hold a cup of boiling liquid (tea, she assumed) that had been thrust into her already full hands, she realized once again that there was no saying 'no' to such a woman.
Mostly because your mouth was already full.
While she had endeavored to convince herself otherwise, Lucca knew full well that simply stepping foot in Crono's house would be one step forward and two or three back in their journey to save him. There had been no way to get around his persistent mother- no thanks to Bekkler's non-consent delivery service, and consequently she knew they would be thrown off schedule. But the scientist had appeased herself with the delusional idea that they would not be long diverted. An hour or two- preferable. The day- perhaps more realistic.
But the whole night?
She grumbled to herself, weighing out the pros and cons of sneaking everyone out when their ever-so-gracious host had fallen asleep, but almost instantly the results were far too weighty on the latter. She could imagine with painful clarity the consequences sure to ensue from the unyielding woman's temper- and that was only if they made it out successfully. She didn't even want to imagine being caught.
Still…
Yet when Lucca peered over the growing mountain of bedding in her arms and recognized the silent loneliness in the mother's movements, each layer of bedding piled onto her a desperate plea for the comfort of a full house, each cookie shoved in her mouth the longing to shower her love on someone… her shoulders slumped.
It was here Lucca realized fully that she could not say no, and that Crono would have to wait until the morning. This was his fault, anyway.
But perhaps it wasn't a completely bad idea; everyone did look rather… worn. Marle and Ayla were dangling off the couch, already half asleep and the rest who cared to show their emotions or at least their fatigue were not far behind. Lucca could only hope they would get away in the morning without being strapped into a three hour-long breakfast.
"There," the older woman smiled as she dropped the last blanket on to the scientist's head, brushing her hands off her skirt as though she had completed a very difficult task. "That should do for the boys upstairs, if you could just bring those up..." Some unintelligible but definitely hot reply came from under the layers. "What was that, dear?" She yanked the sheets back till Lucca's red cheeks flushed over top of the pile.
Lucca tried very hard to say something angry sounding.
"Don't talk with your mouth full of food, Lucca."
Having watched the painful display long enough, Frog finally stepped in. "Allow me, madam." He took a good heap of the pile into his own arms with a tired but graceful smile. "Our kindest thanks; such hospitality far exceeds what one could'st dream."
Something about nightmares came from Lucca's mouth as she begrudgingly chewed through the cookie.
"Oh…" Crono's mom blushed at Frog and swatted at the air as though it were silly. "Don't be ridiculous. Any friend of Crono is a welcome family member."
Although long past weary, Frog gave the slightest tilt of his head. A genuine smile curled his lips. "Good morrow, madam." With that, he turned to ascend the stairs.
Lucca grumbled a 'good night' and trudged after him up into the darkness of Crono's room. The heavy, almost stomping footsteps jostled Marle from her half-conscious state on the couch. She looked up just in time to see the orange hem of her friend's shorts disappear between the railings.
"Lucca?" came her groggy voice.
Upstairs, the blankets dropped from the inventor's arms into an ungraceful heap on the bed. She proceeded to do likewise with her body, not caring that the sheets weren't for her. She sighed deeply, angrily, and shut her eyes to the world.
Deciding it best to give her space, Frog set his stack of neatly folded bedding on the windowsill and took to lighting a few candles around the dim room. The soft light crept in,and Lucca found her eyes gradually opening in response, though she would come to wish that she had kept them shut.
She shot up suddenly, startling Frog, who turned to see her gaping wide-eyed at the corner of the room. There in the shadows stood a dark, familiar figure. Long, spiked hair, medium build, irrefutably bad taste in color-coordinating clothing…
"Cron…o?"
The clone looked blankly back at her from across the room, its eyes shining in the candlelight.
"Hey Lucca, what's going on? Are we…" Marle emerged at the head of the staircase rubbing her eyes, a sleepy Ayla close behind. "Lucca?" Perplexed by the inventor's tense stature and wide eyes, the princess followed her gaze to the unmoving clone with a developing frown.
Slower than slow, Lucca slipped back into a sitting position on the bed. Though she had no desire to laugh, she almost couldn't help but let out that dry scoff lingering in her throat. The clone- the whole reason they had come here- had been forgotten by her until this moment.
Despite that small sense of victory she had earned after going through the stranger part of hell to get the stupid clone- even in spite the fact that it was their only shot at saving him- she glared fiercely at it. Loathsome thing. Oh yes, she glared, feeding the angry 'Crono is an idiot' pool of her pathos the longer she looked. Part of that sorrowful anger was in wondering how he could do something so stupid, leaving her behind to save both himself and the world. The other part was wondering how in the world she was going to haul that thing up a mountain favorably named after death.
How convenient.
"Lucca," Marle whispered, interrupting Lucca's sub-conscious tempest as she sat herself against the headboard of the bed. Ayla curled up tiredly behind them both and disappeared under the mountain of blankets. "What's the matter?"
"Nothing," she growled, finally jerking her glare away from the clone. "Nothing at all."
"Nothing?" echoed the princess skeptically. She took Alfador, who had seemingly come out of nowhere, into her lap and gently stoked his scarlet fur.
"Nothing," confirmed Lucca.
Listening to the dishes clinking in the sink downstairs, a good sign that Robo was keeping Crono's mom distracted, Marle rolled her shoulders casually and leaned backwards. "Well then, I'll tell you what's bugging me." She looked over to the clone for a minute herself, silently contemplating something. "This whole clone thing really weirds me out."
"Why's that?" Lucca half asked, having now moved her glare past Frog and out the window.
"Well for one, it looks so… so creepy."
Lucca snorted sarcastically. "Yeah, well Bekkler's doing something right then, because it's a perfect likeness."
Marle leaned her chin on her elbow, inching herself prostrate. "You're mad at him."
"No!" blurted the genius suddenly, startled at hearing the idea voiced aloud for some reason. "Of course I'm not! I mean why- what do you think I- how could I…"
At his place near the end of the bed, Frog awkwardly shuffled his feet, trying to give the illusion that he wasn't listening in by moving to the windowsill and engaging himself in a good, long look at the stars out the window.
"I mean…" Unsure of what to do with herself, she grabbed a pillow and held it in a dangerously tight grip at her chest. "I mean… I don't know... I… yes. Yes I am, okay?!" the inventor seethed hotly. "He's just so stupid sometimes! He had to go and be the hero and throw his life on the line, and now we have to use this stupid clone to get him back and he didn't even know there was a way that we could save him when he died and AUGHHH!"
The pillow went flying across the room and clocked the clone straight in the head, knocking it over with a quiet thud.
A long moment of surprised silence followed. Marle had never seen Lucca like this. She had been so dry the last few weeks, so determined... Yet with how she had been keeping everything to herself, it wasn't a full shock to have her lash out like this. But still, it hardly seemed like the Lucca she knew- or at least the one she thought she knew. Empathy quickly caught up, and Marle reached for her friend's hand, though she never made it.
"I don't even know if I can do it, Marle!" The inventor pounded the bed suddenly, nearly pulverizing Marle's unseen hand. "There's no guarantee here- no second chances! What if this egg is a dud and we're just on a wild goose chase? And how are we going to make it up that mountain? That wind last time, it…"
In the dim candle light, Marle could see the glimmer of a tear streaming from Lucca's tightly clenched eyes. The frustrated inventor gave one last exasperated attempt at smashing her fists into the bed before a defeated stillness overtook her.
"Lucca." The princess grabbed her listless hand and gave it a strong squeeze. "You're not going to be alone. We'll all be there to help. I've been waiting for this chance since we lost him."
Lucca bit her lip in stubborn silence.
After a long, long silence which seemed to stretch for longer than she wished, Lucca forced herself up. Her voice had become tame again, but her heart... "If Crono is… really gone… then…" she shot a grim look over to the fallen clone in the corner of the room, "What is this thing? His new body? Is he… going to be himself?"
Undoubtedly, Marle was caught off guard by this. A chill snaked along her spine as she fought the urge to peer over to the clone herself, for she really didn't want to look at it more than necessary- especially after thinking of it like that. It made her feel… almost nauseous. "I… I really don't know, Lucca." Her hands wrung somewhat anxiously, and she suddenly felt that the roles in the conversation should be reversed.
Her friend was quiet for a long moment. "I don't like that thought. It's just… just…"
"Disturbing?" Magus finished, appearing with perfectly imperfect timing at the top of the stairs.
Lucca stiffed and swiped at her pink cheeks to rid them of any unwarranted tears while Marle frowned at the dark figure, silently scolding him for intruding with so little sensitivity. Alfador did not seem to mind the intrusion however, for he looked as though he wanted to jump ship and run to his master. Marle tried to calm him as he paced back and forth in her lap before he finally seemed to decide against moving, as that would mean passing the condoned clone to do so.
"Well it doesn't matter anyway," stated Marle with bold confidence, trying to bolster Lucca's depleting spirits. "We're gonna' undo every stupid thing that stupid Lavos did!"
Although Lucca's temper had considerably settled, her questions had not, and so they came out in a rather sour tone. "What did Lavos do to him anyway? I mean, he just disappeared... evaporated into thin air."
Frog, who was still sitting in the windowsill, looked over his shoulder briefly but said nothing. He much rather preferred to be a fly on the wall with all of the wild conversations that had taken place today.
Marle pursed her lips and further tried coaxing Alfador to relax until Magus came and took him away to a corner of the room, opposite the clone and everyone else.
Ayla, who crawled out from under the blankets somewhere amid Lucca's rant, made her way towards the clone, sniffing and poking at it in hopes of some understanding. It seemed she had been doing her best to comprehend everything they had said about it and now wished to come to her own conclusion on the strange thing. She sniffed at it, nudging it with a calloused palm in the expectation of some response; it simply lay lifeless on the ground. She gave it a little kick; again there was nothing. Then, without warning, she was growling at it, hitting it and abusing it as though to persuade it into a fight.
"Hey!" Despite herself, Lucca decided she didn't like the sudden outburst. "What're you doing?!"
"Ayla no like!" the blonde declared aloud between growls. "Weak! Crono not weak!"
"Shh," Marle stepped in between the two girls and grabbed Ayla's shoulders in attempts to coax her away from the doll. "It's not Crono, Ayla. It's just a clone."
"Clone?" Ayla piqued, further noting that it would not respond when she jabbed it in the eye. "Copy Crono?"
"Yeah-"
"Copy bad! Wrong! Crono no weak!" Her lip sharpened into a snarl at the clone.
Letting Marle handle the cavewoman's wild antics, Lucca sighed. "It's not human, Ayla. It's not even alive, it's just a-" Lucca stopped short suddenly as the sick dance in Bekkler's tent came back to mind, and that haunting laughter echoed through her head. "… just a doll."
"No human?" Ayla echoed carefully.
"Exactly," Marle echoed, looking to Lucca confidently. Lucca, however, was looking less sure of herself now, and her uneasy silence melted away some of the princess' assurance.
"No human, no spirit!" Ayla decided finally. Turning away from the clone, she caught Marle's hands up and began waving them dramatically through the air like limp noodles. "No spirit! Weak inside, like shell!" The princess didn't look particularly willing to stand as the resident demonstration mannequin, but there was no room for arguing in Ayla's rock solid grip.
"Body," the prehistoric woman continued her explanation by flexing her puppet's thin, reluctant arms. "Body good! Strong hands, strong arms. But spirit," she then proceeded to pound Marle's chest, knocking the wind from her before pointing to her forehead, "spirit real strength!"
Dizzied and breathless, Marle stumbled from Ayla's loosening grasp and jumped back to the bed, gripping a fist around one of the headboard's bars just in case she should be attacked again.
"Okay…" Lucca enunciated slowly. She was never one for deep, spiritual talks, especially from a prehistoric preacher. "So you're saying…?"
"A handful of empty words," Magus spat sarcastically from the corner.
Sensing some form of insult, Ayla growled at him. Her recovery was quick, however, for she was an intentional teacher with what she did address and was not easily put off. "Body not good if no spirit!" A gentle touch was given to her temple. "When weak spirit…" her hand settled down at her chest, "weak body."
"Aye'," Frog nodded thoughtfully, having spun around from his place at the windowsill and listened with interest; he had always enjoyed a hearty philosophical discussion. "A man's wellspring of strength cometh from neither might nor muscle, but from the moral fiber of his spirit. Tis' beyond eye and ear; rather, tis' a matter of the heart, for by the speech and fortitude of a man thou know'st the overflow of his heart and soul. Tis' the true source of valor."
"SO," Lucca began slowly, slightly frustrated at all the fluffy wording. "You're saying that the 'spirit' of a person is where all these 'good things' come from?"
"Like their heart?" Marle echoed the same confusion as the scientist.
"Strength!" Ayla reassured with a flex of her arms, then onto another less muscular thought. "Like river. No, like ocean! Spirit like ocean!" As though she had another idea, she made to move at Marle, who quickly jumped up to the windowsill and disappeared behind Frog for safety.
"Eeeyeah…" the inventor sighed. Metaphor's weren't her cup of tea, either.
"Strive not, Lucca," Frog assured, crossing his arms in a very natural manner. "All good qualities cometh from within a man's spirit; emotion, will and love. Yet tis' perhaps best seen and felt in such moments of courage, I believe, for many a strong man may begets a weak spirit, and many a weak man conceals a strong spirit. Crono is just so, and even more."
Lucca bit her lip thoughtfully. "You mean that his strength isn't outwardly obvious." She moved slowly from the bed, inching towards the still-fallen clone. A long, hard look was given it before she lifted it back to its feet. "You… you see his strength in his actions."
"Indeed," Frog smiled a little and placed a webbed hand over his chest. "Tis' deeply rooted in this heart that Crono's spirit shall not be overcome; he who hath restored the Masamune to mine hand and looked the darkness of death betwixt the eye… Nay, such spirit shall not be blown out. I aspire to hope that I may be half the man as he." He looked almost a little forlorn at that, but the look disappeared with a shake of his head. "Nay, he shant be struck down so easily, for death's claw doth loosen its hold on him as we speakth."
"It has no choice." Lucca patted her arms lightly, her voice a solid determination. "We're coming for him, and we're gonna put up one hell of a fight."
"No let Crono go!" Ayla echoed proudly. "Bring back, more strong than before!"
"Aye, tis' with all certainty," Frog agreed happily.
"Just so," came the sarcastic, wet blanket of a voice from the corner of the room. "Heartwarming. But all this virtuous talk of yours is but that- talk. Death does not easily retract its claws, especially with such 'spirit' as your cretinous friend in hand. It's too good of a feast to release."
The atmosphere of the room dropped a touch, and Lucca looked with confusion to the wizard's crossed arms and gloom. But before she could pry into his dark meanings, Frog had jumped to the defense.
"In such a case," the knight glanced to the especially dark corner with strong spite. "It doth seem death would be fuller than thou, wretched wizard."
"It could be fuller still. Keep talking." Magus examined his gloves in boredom, not bothering to look to the growing anger lighting Frog's face.
Frog glowered at him, swinging his small, green legs off the ledge of the window. "Do not tempt me upon such little sleep…"
Magus smiled darkly, feigning flattery. "I'm flattered. I never thought myself a temptation, though such an engagement does seem amusing."
The cold-blooded amphibian glared at him for small moment, but feeling Marle's cold hand on his shoulder, his eyes shut and he reconsidered his method of attack. "Behold," he then gestured with grand expression towards the wizard, struggling to keep the hostility between his teeth, "that some lack all such spoken of virtues and necessary organs."
"Some lack humanly attributes all together."
Lucca rolled her eyes. "Alright guys, I think we've seen-"
"Here Lucca," interjected Frog hotly. "Let us learn in the lacking of principle, for there could'st no be a more exemplary model of such spiritless stature! Indeed, feast thine eye, for such an excellent mold cannot last forever; no-" his mug darkened. "I condemn it."
"Touching," the wizard sneered. "But those threats grow empty on you, Glenn."
"Nay," Frog corrected, his eyes flashing in the faint candle light before he checked this anger. He took a slow breath as if to remind himself of something before he continued. "Tis' not a threat- tis' a promise, for it will come in time. Truly the heavens forbid such transgression as thine self to be a longstanding stain upon the Earth, and I am of one mind with it."
"I think stain is being too generous," grumbled Lucca under her breath.
Magus simply unfurled his arms in reply, holding them out with loose expectancy. "Anyone else while we're at it? My virtue is at its leisure."
"You mean!" Ayla started, running up to him with an accusing and muscular finger. "I see! I know!" Alfador's ears flattened at the sharp chastisement, and he crawled back into his master's cape in a healthy fear of the cavewoman.
Lucca groaned, moving back to the bed. "Here we go."
"Yes, isn't it about time we went somewhere?" Magus spat, crossing his arms over his thick breastplate. "I wasn't aware you pathetic people were so inclined to be pushed around like a group of brainless Mystics. Pitiful. How do you intend to stand up to Lavos with a such an attitude? Or save that stupid hero of yours?"
"Shut it, Magus," snapped Lucca with an unexpected coldness. It was an unusual contrast to her steady and sizzling anger, and it practically radiated from where she sat on the bed. "Crono is twice the man you'll ever be; you could never stand up to Lavos the way he did."
"Yes, that got him quite far, didn't it?"
"He saved your life!" she hissed, getting to her feet again. "And that's how you thank him?!"
The wizard made to reply, but was quickly interrupted by another voice.
"Stop," Marle interjected, stepping out from her hiding place in the windowsill and tucking her hands behind her back. Her presence had been all but forgotten since Ayla's demonstration, but now all eyes turned to her with slow confusion. She met none of theirs, for her very forlorn gaze lingered solely on the clone. "Just… let's not fight. Please."
"Afraid of the truth, princess?" the wizard asked lowly, but Marle simply ignored him. This, he found strangely unsettling.
Seeing that Marle would not fight back as she moved peaceably towards the bed and sat down, everyone seemed to hesitantly readjust themselves. The primitive woman took the least convincing, for she was more concerned with sleep than telling Magus off anyway. "Okay Marle, no fight."
"Sure, keep the peace and all," Lucca sighed, sitting herself down beside Marle and seeming to grow very tired suddenly. Perhaps the wizard's words had struck truer than it showed, for the scientist had lost much of the vigor she had strut only a minute ago. Marle gave a small smile to her as comfort, though it did not seem like her own.
Despite himself, Frog felt a pang of melancholy curve his will. While he could not fathom the sudden change of heart Marle was showing- she, the most affluent in arguments with the wizard, keeping silent and dissuading a justified fight- he could see all too well that she did not look to be herself. There was a kind of sadness in her tone that did not belong there, and this was troublesome to him. Yet his appraisal of the affair led him to believe that it was a night which begged for peace all around, peace which would not come with stubborn persistence.
"As you wish, my lady," he croaked finally. Although obstinate in his dislike for the prince, he was better versed in his compassion and loyalty for the princess, so he rolled over and spoke no more.
Said prince, on the other hand, seemed to deflate in the ensuing quiet, outwardly unsure what to do with it. He looked about the room for an attack, but everyone had turned their back to him. He gave a short, unimpressed breath as his hands returned to his faithful feline. In the absence of any further offensives directed his way, Alfador had calmed and curled into Magus' lap, eyes closed and tail flicking gentle. Of course, his master knew he was only pretending to sleep. He stoked the purple fur slowly, watching as the silence turned each person to their own thoughts and corners; all overly concerned about their lost friend, he assumed.
Not that it mattered to him. He only wanted to know why she had shut them down.
He had been craving a little chaos with the general rainy mood everyone had succumb to today, and normally such a state was the perfect time to attack the levees of their patience- especially Marle's. All in all, he could but wonder what was wrong with her. Where was her fight to the death disposition, her bottomless bravado? He was more than willing to fight, and usually she was, too.
But in fact, she wasn't paying him any mind at the moment. She seemed rather concerned with something else, for she was fidgeting with her pendant as always and looking off out the window longingly. She looked back to her exhausted friend, who had fixed herself onto that clone once again, and frowned.
"Lucca," the princess whispered suddenly as she shifted towards her. The inventor's dull, tired eyes snapped away quickly, moving to where the princess was reaching around her neck and picking at the clasp of her pendant.
"Yeah?" she croaked softly.
"Here," Marle said when she had finally freed the golden chord from her neck. "Can you do me a favor?"
Lucca quirked a brow. "Like what...?" Marle smiled a little. Scooting closer to her friend, she leaned over and wrapped her arms over Lucca's neck and fiddled with the small clasp of the pendant, trying blindly to pinch it together between her wiry hair. "Marle?" was all the violet-haired girl managed, blinking at her friend in confusion when she felt the cool stone rest against her skin.
Marle sat back, adjusting the pendant so that it sat right in the midst of Lucca's small, yellow scarf. She continued in a whisper. "My dad gave this to me when my mother died. He said it would be a comfort for me, when I was sad or felt alone…"
Lucca's eyes widened slightly. "Marle…"
"I know that's what you're feeling right now," replied the princess, low enough so that the rest of the group wouldn't hear. "And I thought this would help."
"I-I can't…" Lucca began, reaching awkwardly for the thin, golden thread around her neck. Her friend stopped her.
"Till we get Crono back." Her slender fingers drew themselves away and she nudged herself back to examine her work. "Only another day. Okay?"
Lucca had never been one to get overly emotional- not until recently, it seemed. As much as she might deny it, she knew Marle was right to some extent- she hadn't exactly been doing the best in the last few weeks. Lost, afraid… angry… Doubt had become a vacuum within her mind, sucking dry the confidence she had felt in herself, in the team…
Lucca bit her lip, fighting the dull ache in her chest. She knew that she needed to have faith that she could do this- that they could do this. "Alright," she finally said, touching the blue stone gently. "Till tomorrow then."
Marle sat back against the headboard, twirling her fingers contentedly. "Thanks."
Lucca gave her a strange look. "What?"
Marle only smiled that content little smile of hers.
Lucca arched a brow, confused by the princess' flip-flopping emotions. She was sure there was something off with her, but Marle had managed to become more of a mystery than she cared to tackle as of late. Not truly caring to think about anything at the moment, Lucca took to examining the pendant which had come to find a home around her neck.
Marle, however, sat nursing the bare skin of her collarbone. It was a foreign sensation for her, not having that necklace stuck to her skin; she had worn it for as long as she remembered, and its absence was a nakedness in itself. There was nothing for her to fidget with, nothing soothing and solid resting reassuredly at her chest…
But seeing Lucca, who was distracted in gingerly touching the golden-blue heirloom as though it would break, she glued her small smile back together. There were more important things to worry about, now.
Magus had watched this all from across the room with a frown perhaps deeper than usual. His gaze shifted between the pendant and the princess' fidgeting hands. He watched her curl up in a blanket a little ways from where Ayla had roosted, her eyes now intently set on the clone. Then, after a minute, she looked out the window again, though this time as though she were looking for something specific.
When everyone had completely settled off into their own silent reflection, Marle gave up her gazing and reached into her pocket instead. Out came the small, sparkling object he had seen her hide back in Keeper's Dome. Its faint, bluish light gave a cold light to the princess' tired expression. Trying to be secretive, she fondled it in her hands with the utmost care as if to milk something from it. It was when she had gingerly put her ear towards it that she caught Magus making a study of her. Locking eyes with him, she closed her hand around the small light and placed it back in her pocket. Her mouth opened to complain or protest, but then closed as she decided against it.
Stubborn, he fixed his determined and condescending glare on her, waiting and subconsciously hoping he would set her off somehow. But instead, her expression became troubled, almost sorrowful and... her brow furrowed. To his surprise, she pursued her lips and looked away sharply.
Then he could bear it no longer and he looked away, surprised to find a dull, numbing throb in his chest.
What was that?
The rest of the group slowly drifted away from consciousness, each in their own manner until Lucca, who had been drifting between fondling the pendant and keeping consciousness, finally got up and nudged the other two sleepy girls downstairs.
"Sweet dreams, guys," she whispered halfheartedly over her shoulder before disappearing down the stairs. Frog croaked similar wishes, but Magus simply looked at her.
"You really mean to better my sleep's quality by well-wishing?" he asked dryly, not whispering.
"Good night, Magus."
"Cretin."
"Fiend," croaked Frog quickly.
Lucca did not stick around to hear the rest, but knowing better than to leave Magus and Frog alone in the same room, she quickly steered Robo upstairs with hushed commands of peacekeeping and sanity. "Let me know if things get ugly, and I'll be up in a flash. I wouldn't want Crono's mom to have to deal with that kind of… bloodshed."
-v-
Magus woke, finding himself not where he had fallen asleep, but in an open meadow full of bright and blooming flora. Blue and purple flowers budded in speckles among the green grass, and vivid red apples grew on the large, solitary tree which he stood beneath.
Then, without picking it himself, he found the fruit of the tree suddenly in his hands. Yet while this was quite an interesting happening, he found everything rather... dull.
"What brainless dreams I have," he complained, picking halfheartedly at the peel.
At least he hoped it was brainless. There was a moment of stillness where he wondered how in the world he had come up with such a place in his own imagination. Was he going soft? Had he been with this group of ridiculous Earthbounders for too long? He had heard that humans had that effect… their stupidity could be caught, it was said.
Then, in a moment of greater stillness came a voice so faint he could have sworn it was born of the wind. It spoke to him.
"Janus." The haunting thread of a voice came from everywhere all at once in the open field. The voice came to his ears, and something within himself which he had thought to be dead immediately pulsed to life. His ears perked, his eyes sparked, and his breath hitched in this throat. "Help me."
And suddenly, it no longer mattered if it were a dream, or if the dream was even his. Spurred by the familiarity of the voice, Magus began bolting after the echoes of the voice, searching wildly for its source. Trees, rocks, grass… there was nothing with enough majority to hide behind, and the pang of desperation grew more profound with each unsuccessful step.
"Schala! Where are you?"
"… Janus?"
The sapphire-haired prince, seeing no other possible hiding place, began tearing up flowers and shrubs; anything and everything in his path was uprooted and examined with momentary value. Hues of pink, blues, and yellows were all tossed over his shoulder without a second thought. "Where, Schala? Where are you?"
"Don't hurt the flowers, Janus," the voice pleaded. "They've just blossomed."
"What?!" he panted confusedly.
"Janus, please…" the flowers seemed to weep beneath his feet and the dull throb returned to his chest. "Come. Come down here."
"Are you-?" Looking to the ground behind him, he noted a small, glassy pool of water which had seemed to appear on its own. Not questioning, he came to it with a bent knee.
"Schala…?"
Somewhere beyond the surface of the water she was there, brows creased and emerald eyes fixed with concern on her brother. Magus had never breathed a sigh of relief in his life and because of the lack of practice, his sigh sounded rather more like anger. But of course he was not angry; it was quite the opposite, for his heart nearly felt that it would burst from his chest. She was just as beautiful and wonderful as he remembered, and he felt a weight lift simply looking at her. Her long, flowing hair, her soft eyes… were filled with sadness.
She did not seem to share his joy.
"Listen to me, Janus," her brow creased further as she drew out the name with great significance. "I need to ask something very important of you."
"Anything," Magus breathed.
The slightest smile graced her lips and everything else fell away that moment, for his joy was complete. He had not seen her smile in… how long had it been?
"I need you to water the apple tree," she pointed off somewhere, reminding him vaguely of his surroundings. "It's dying." Even if her smile was gone, he could feel its warmth just as much as the sun above him, so much so that the direction she pointed could not divert his attention from her kindling glow.
"… Schala." He could feel nothing but the warmth drawing him in, a strange sensation he could compare with nothing else he had known; not even what he had once known and almost forgotten. "Nothing else matters."
"But it does," she insisted, the water glistening as the sun beat down on them violently. "It's going to die if it isn't watered soon, and all the fruit will rot."
"No," he insisted, ignoring the heat at his back and the wooden bucket which had seemed to suddenly appear beside him. "I won't leave you now that I've found you. Nothing else matters."
She frowned and her image was confused with the light bouncing off the water. "Oh Janus. You haven't found me."
Finally, he realized that the puddle had lost a considerable amount of volume and slowly but surely, it was draining. "Schala!" he gasped. "Stop this!"
"Water the tree, Janus. You must save it." Her troubled reflection disappeared as the water evaporated into the air, and she was no more.
Magus took a deep, shaking breath and shut his eyes. He stood up. He stood for so long that it could have been forever, simply shaking and seething. Furiously, his eyes flashed open and he turned back to the wake of uprooted destruction he had left in the field, and he was startled to find one major change to the scene.
Everything was on fire.
"It's dying… Janus, the tree…"
Torn between rage and confusion, Magus began searching desperately for water. He ripped apart the earth, now charred and black, uprooting whatever burnt vegetation was left. He dug and scratched and scraped, but there was no water to be found anywhere.
He heard a sizzling sound and looked back. To his surprise, he found another small pond of water had appeared, and so ran to it to scoop from it. But when he got there, he was surprised to find that it was not water, but a sheet of ice which had surfaced. Lost in a moment of confusion, he peered further at the ice, sure that there was some shadow beneath it, some familiar shape…
"Schala!" he called, pounding on the glass-like ice with a strong fist. But it would not break beneath his weight no matter what he tried, and the shadow beneath the surface was fading now.
The growing sounds of searing and scorching flames finally drew his attention back to the reality of what was happening around him. Reluctantly, he pushed himself off his knees to a stand, and as he looked over his shoulder he realized that someone was throwing buckets of water on the giant apple tree's trunk.
"Marle?" he asked with critical disbelief.
"We have to put this tree out," she grunted simply between swings of the bucket.
Magus scanned the area again, realizing that the fire had become worse. He could feel the heat creeping in under his leather breast plate. "You're a fool for being here," he began.
"Don't be ridiculous, Magus. If we don't put this fire out-"
"You need to leave," he repeated forcibly, taking swift steps towards her though she ignored him. "Now."
"No!" she retorted, swinging bucket after bucket as though it were some sort of game until it was wrenched from her hands. "Hey!" she finally turned to him, the flames dancing in her wide, angry eyes.
"Go!" the irritated wizard practically yelled. "If you don't leave now-"
Her fists balled. "Don't you understand? We have to save the tree!"
With surprising restraint, Magus stepped away from her and tossed his cape about his shoulder. "Fine," he hissed. "Your death is on your own head."
He didn't wait to see the look on her face as he turned. With the stolen bucket in hand, he returned to the desperate search for water- the only option he seemed to have left. He looked about himself and for the first time in his life, felt lost for direction. He took a step, though it did him no good. He took another, and then broke into a sprint. But his motions had become murky and confusing the father he ran. He would move forwards, and his feet would take him in circles instead. He would walk for what felt like hours, then blink and find he had not moved at all. All he was sure of was the growing flames around him.
Then, a scream so awful pierced the air that he was forced to stop in his mismatched tracks.
"…Marle?" came his voice over the screaming. It didn't stop. He turned and looked around him and saw that he was alone. Yet the aggressive sound and the fear of its source had earned a strange reaction from the man; he turned and ran back the way he had come- or at least, the way he thought he had come- and called out again.
But there was nothing there to answer him.
There was nothing but burning foliage; nothing but those vibrant red apples, falling from the engulfed limbs of the tree. Down they fell through the flames, smashing as they hit the ground one after another. Nothing but the tongues of fire licking closer and closer.
Nothing but that awful scream.
-v-
Magus jolted awake to a pitch black room and two shining eyes watching him.
"Alfador…" he breathed, reminding himself for the hundredth why he avoided sleep. Standing out in broad daylight had more appeal.
Slowly, his hands relaxed into the feline's soft, soothing fur and he looked about himself.
Where was he? Ah yes- they were in the obtrusive Earthbound woman's house; Crono's mother. He grimaced. Sitting up in the darkness, he took the cat into his arms and ignored the loud snores- he assumed that was the frog- as he moved soundlessly across towards the stairs. The robot was still and dark, conveniently positioned between the two enemy-allies for good measure.
"Hmph," Magus said to himself as he floated down the stairs. Seeing the moonlight streaming beneath the front door, he followed it till he was standing with the doorknob in hand. The door groaned open, and so did something behind him.
"Hnnnzz…"
Turing, he saw the light-flooded room full of blankets and sleeping bodies, one of which immediately caught his attention.
Marle twisted and turned, rubbing her eyes in annoyance at the unwanted light gently streaming over her still-shut eyes. She mumbled something in her sleep, then spun around again and sighed contentedly.
A slow, angry scowl escaped the mage's lips as he watched her. Her pale skin shimmered like white opal in the moonlight, despite the dark blanket which had been wrapped up so tightly around her that it looked like a cocoon with a leg or an arm sticking out unevenly here and there. Could the fool even breathe as such?
Alfador was slowly and gently let down. Magus looked around the humble house. No one was awake.
Inching over the bodies on the floor, Magus hovered towards the couch where he landed soundlessly. For a long, long moment, he only stared at her face intently, willing the awful dream away from his memory and that scream with it.
That despicable wind wafted through the door behind him, practically torturing his senses with sharp nostalgia and longing. Ignorant to the wizard and everything around her, Marle smiled to herself and rolled onto her side with a sigh. Her smile was sweet and innocent; pure and honest. For the first time he could remember, Magus wished that his dreams might be as pleasant.
Irritated, he left the house, silently shutting the door behind himself and his cat.
-v-
The town had a much different feel to it in the covering of the night. Perhaps all of the human world did. Magus had never spent enough time among such dwellings to feel the difference between night and day, though. His castle, of course, had felt the same no matter what time of day it was- an elusive accomplishment he had been quite proud of.
Eternal darkness.
Only now as he walked through the damp grass did he perhaps consider what he had missed. He saw it perfectly- the clear stars, dancing along the surface of dark water, reflecting the moonlight with pristine ripples- yes, it was softer than anything he had seen before, and amid the gentle shades of darkness, there was a natural beauty to the moonlight.
He sat himself beside the town's fountain, looking intently into the water. Its crystal-like reflection gave brilliance to the canopy of stars overhead, imitating each one with only the slightest, rippling distortion. It drew him to look deeper, though not at the starts, for half of him hoped to see his sister's reflection looking back at him, but he knew….
Schala was...
His eyes bore into the water, burning under the weight of a question he could not speak, and a conclusion he did not wish to reach, searching for the answer in between that wouldn't come. But he had played this game before, and he knew what the answer was without asking the question. If Schala was dead, then all that was left to do was avenge her death and die himself.
If.
Alfador looked up at him with his big, glossy eyes. Slower than slow, Magus turned to meet his feline companion's gaze.
This one small word changed everything. Could there be hope? Having such a dream… and the turn of those winds he had followed? Could it mean something? A piece of the answer between the question and the conclusion?
Alfador opened his mouth to mew, but a loud thunk sounded from somewhere behind them instead. Magus' sharp ears pricked at the noise, listening as a soft sob and a hellish hiss mixed.
In the split of a second, the wizard was peering around the side of the small brick house from which the noise had come. Two figures were found behind it: one kneeling, bent over and shaking as the other stood above it with a crooked sword of sorts in hand. He didn't need to look twice to recognize such horrible craftsmanship- it was a Mystic weapon no doubt, which left him wondering about the figure kneeling…
Sure enough, there was blood all over the ground, glistening in the moonlight with an annexed limb of some sort lying as the source. It seemed the monster had cut off its victim's right hand and was now making to claim it's left.
As though he were invisible, Magus sauntered around the corner and stood beside the scene, watching in silence. Neither in the party took notice to his presence.
"Death…" grunted the threatening creature, beginning a chant of sorts. "Death to the Mystic's enemies." The person on the ground, a woman, he realized, had been taken over with shock. All she seemed capable of at the moment was gasping for air like a fish out of water while she looked up in petrified fear. "Death to the Mystic's enemies!"
"Pl…pl…" she blinked, sputtering rapidly and swallowing hard.
The mystic, an unusually fat Diablos with matted gray fur and a missing left ear, let out an ugly sounding chuckle and prepared to swing its horribly crooked sword downward when Magus' towing shadow finally caught its eye.
"Hmnh?" it snapped, lowering its weapon impatiently as it looked up to the intruder. Its single ear twitched with impatience. "Who else seeks for…for…"
The wizard's trademark crimson glare met the creature's black and beady shock without blinking. Its face slowly, almost unwillingly, morphed from wreathed anger to terror.
"M-Maa-" the creature stumbled over its words, then its feet. "You're s-supposed to be…"
"Dead?" he smiled, bearing his fangs.
Gawking at the apparent apparition, the creature could but stammer and back away with small steps. "You… you can't be!"
"I'm touched you remember me."
The uncomfortable Diablos looked guilty suddenly, but the look quickly vanished as it stumbled around and broke into a run. It disappeared around the house and out of sight, knowing better than to hang under the shadow of the Mystic's most viciously renowned leader- ghost or not.
Having watched the pitiful thing scamper off with an arched brow, Magus turned back to the fountain when the shaking voice of the woman cried out to him. "P-please…" she whispered, holding her wrist in desperate attempt to stop the blood. "H-hel…p…"
He looked back to her with a stone face, studying her struggle without the slightest trace of pity. "You would ask me for help?" He turned fully to her so that she could see the red of his eyes should she ever look up. "Do you know who I am, wretched woman?"
Her deep, panicking breaths were his only answer.
"No?" he began. Still, she would not look at him. "Then you would not care for my definition of help."
Finally craning her neck up, her eyes met his and she recoiled in horror, wincing in pain as she tried to scream or cry or make any sort of verbal response to the sight of such eyes. He watched her for a long moment, waiting for some sort of reaction but no sound came from her cracked lips. She slowly fell onto her back, her body moving with the silent sobs until she was slumped down into the bloody grass.
Magus returned the way he had come, but found no pleasure in the thought of looking back into the water fountain. There had been something terribly off about his encounter with the Mystic. How had know who he was? Surely he had been erased from the Mystic's history after his supposed betrayal? Yet it seemed nothing had changed with the Mystics; their intentions certainly hadn't.
Neither had their eyesore, pathetic definition of weaponry. Which was strange...
This version of the world he was in now was four-hundred years ahead of what he was used to, which could only mean that their vengeful population had remained a shadow in the background of time- a shadow becoming tangible once again. He knew all too well what these aggressive Mystic's were doing in this time period; their goal never truly changed so much as to give them any sort of mystery. What he did wonder, however, was who was running their blood-thirsty assault. A lot could change in four hundred years...
Instead of sitting at the fountain, he thoughtfully turned back to Crono's house- over the cobblestone, through the neighbor's yards and gardens and vegetables, lost in through and not caring to look where he stepped.
But stepping from the trees as he rounded the corner of the Crono's house, Magus found something he not been expecting- another Mystic. More accurately, it was the upper half of a Mystic, for this one was in the process of crawling through the living room window which had been propped open. Rear first, it had positioned itself so that its ugly little head and torso stuck out as its stumpy legs struggled to find solid footing on the inside, its single ear twitching eagerly...
It was the same creature he had seen only a moment ago.
Despite himself, Magus actually felt a moment of something. All his mind could see was the possibility of what transpired inside that house; the walls crawling with blood thirsty Mystics, blood spattered everywhere, and that sole monster standing over the couch's tightly wound up occupant with its rusty, crooked sword stained red.
It was then that Magus understood what the Mystics were doing, and he moved.
If it could, the air seemed to darken. The creature apparently noticed this and looked up quickly, though not quickly enough.
Before it could see the darkness tainting Magus' face, the creature panicked. Before it could grab its sword from inside and while it was still trying to pull itself free from the window, the wizard had grabbed it by the neck and slammed its body forcefully into a large tree. There was a sharp cracking sound, and the Diablos screamed in pain.
"What is your business here?" the prince asked with such a low tone that only the creature would have heard it. Knowing it was going to die, it held its pride with a silent, pained grimace. "Speak!" came the less forgiving demand with another harsh throttle into the bark. The Diablos' eyes closed to hide its pain, but its hideously stained teeth bared in a cringe. The stench of death clung about its lips. Impatient, the wizard's hands morphed into a deep, molten red as he tightened his grip on its body, making it squirm and whimper under the searing heat of melting fur and flesh.
"Death…" The creature's eyes slit sideways, showing the full green-gold of its iris in the moonlight. "Death to the Mystic's enemies!"
Grinding his teeth, Magus snarled. "Death indeed."
The smell of smoke and burning flesh filled the air before any scream escaped. Its glossy eyes bulged, and every muscle in its body tensed as a fire that could fuel a furnace ravaged its body. Magus' molten eyes blinked, and it was no more.
Not apt to waste another second, the wizard was moving towards the house with Alfador hot on his heels. He flung the front door open, scanning every inch of the still, moon lit room. But despite his expectations, he found everything the way he had left it; the cavewoman curled up in a ball under the table, the scientist, whose face was smothered in some book, snoring and fast asleep on the small recliner in the corner; Marle, blissfully and ignorantly curled up on the couch. His feet touched down at the end of the sofa and he examined her thoroughly. She was breathing. There was no blood. She still had that euphorically unaware, dangerously stupid look on her face.
For a long moment, the mammoth of a man only stood in the doorway, waiting for some evil to present itself- nothing came. Shaking with anger, he grabbed the rusted sword from the open window and stormed out of the house.
Towards the woods along the ocean he moved, his strides sure and heated. He entered the clearing and stood in the silence for a long, long moment, listening to the buzzing of the forest before him. Not a creature stirred, and not even a breath of wind blew.
But the black wind was screaming.
"You've been lied to," he called to the darkness. "See for yourselves."
There was no answer other than the sounds of the ocean against the shore for a long, long minute. Then, there was one soft rustling sound, and suddenly a hundred pairs of yellow eyes opened in the darkness, all peering down on him with enough sour malice to curdle milk.
"Tell them," he spoke into the emptiness, hoisting the Mystic's sword overhead. "Tell them not to bother. I'm coming to them."
Before those eyes could come at him, the wizard let out a fierce, sudden grunt before whipping the sword into the darkness. It flew from his hand, no longer as a simple and rusted sword, but as an obsidian-colored, shadow covered artifact, moving through the air with uncanny force. It came at the trees at that alarming, unnatural speed, lodging itself into a large oak and riveting back and forth for a minute before melting into a black, shadowy vortex- a powerful force dragging anything within radius into certain darkness. It caught up a few of the smaller creatures, and their screams rang out bitterly as they disappeared into the void.
Needing no further encouragement, the Mystics within the woods spun and fled, though not before many more of them were dragged into Magus' dark vortex. Finally, the dull buzzing ceased, and the void shrunk into non-existence.
The wizard turned back towards the house with a heated breath. The black wind was still a steady gust, but it was no longer following him and that was good enough for now. All that mattered at this moment was that there were no crazed monsters ravaging through that house, hovering over the couch. He didn't have to run anything through and pull that stupid princess out of the blanket to find the source of bleeding. He didn't have to haul her up the stairs to the Frog, who may or may not be alive, and have him heal her; he didn't have to explain why he had planned all of this out in a split second.
But he did have one thing to do.
Almost hesitantly, he looked down to Alfador, who had been at his back the whole of the time. "Stay here and keep watch."
Returning again to the sleeping living room, Magus floated silently toward Marle and proceeded to jab her with the dull end of his scythe. After a few more jabs, one of her eyes was gradually coaxed open. "Hnn…?" she mumbled, and Magus gestured for silence.
"Get up," he ordered in a low, impatient voice.
"Nnnn," groaned the half conscious princess. "Tomorrow… we can go tomorrow…"
Seeing the inventor stir under her book, he checked his temper. "Now, princess."
He could not have been more successful in coaching a team of little league soccer. The princess yawned, stretched and rolled over on the couch. Asleep.
Magus, however, was not so inclined to repeat methods which were highly ineffective, no matter how small or insignificant, and so the next time Marle tried to roll over, the half of her which was more-or-less awake suddenly realized that there was nothing to roll on to, no blanket to wrap around herself… and that the air was suddenly much colder than she remembered.
'This is a lousy dream,' she thought to herself with a shiver, sensing how her limbs hung out onto nothing. Grudgingly opening her eyes, the princess found herself in such a strange position that she could only assume herself to be dreaming.
She was floating.
"Huh?" she managed a little louder than she should have. At her startle, both Ayla and Lucca stirred in their sleep, tense for only a moment before sinking back into their innocent and blissful doze. Puzzled and dazed, she looked about the room for the source of her rude, magical awakening. Seeing Magus' dark figure retreating out the front door with a strange glow to it and realizing that she was following- or floating, rather, after him- she quickly put the pieces together.
Not that she really had many clues as to what was going on. So far, this puzzle looked as solid as ground beef. Who said Magus could make other people float? All the same, she moved through the air like a cloud blown by the wind, until she herself was through the front door and standing on the dew-tipped grass in her bare feet.
"Magus…?" she asked suspiciously when the door closed behind her. Having been startled awake and now rather unpleasantly cold, she consoled herself by rubbing at the goose bumps on her bare arms. How dearly she missed the warmth of her blanket now. "What's going on?"
But Magus was already up the hill and moving faster than she could keep up with. "Your pitiful magic is needed."