DISCLAIMER: This is a novelization-in-progress of the masterpiece Xenogears from SquareSoft. I do not own the content of this, save for maybe the way I described "how" something happened. All characters, speech, and storyline are exclusive property and copyrighted by SquareSoft.
Into the Woods
At last, Fei was broken from his reverie as he came upon the outskirts of the Black Moon Forest. He knew there were monsters inside, he knew how harshand uneven the landscape inside was, but he wasn't going to stop. He had nothing behind him, and he could only go forward. The farther he stepped, hemore and more he wanted to run, run from Lahan. Run from the smoking ruins... ...run from Dan's screams of anguish.
As he entered, a small flock of birds flew off into another tree, and a crow squawked in the distance. There were some knocked over trees and vines hanging around, and the landscape was uneven, forcing him to climb up roots and acrossfallen tree trunks to advance.
It took him quite a while before he came to small clearing, which he had made after rolling a boulder out of the way, accidentally squishing a hob. He was about to proceed into the next section of the forest when he heard a noise behind him. He was about to turn around when a voice yelled out.
"Ana haus!"
Fei turned around to see a woman leveling a pistol to his chest. She was wearing a rather odd uniform of white with black detail. It was actually more of a skirt than anything else. On the center of her chest was a green gemstone, and on her shoulders she bore some distinctive red markings. She seemed to carry an air of authority, although to Fei it seemed forced. However, he couldn't understand a word she was saying.
"Kah te nye? Ta, tah dyne tuna ahk va! Dah noul raun tak. Rahna koute! Uh..."
Fei just continued to look at her with a puzzled look on his face. After a few seconds, the woman seemed to realize that he didn't understand her. She shook her head briefly, and then spoke to him in English.
"Throw down your weapon. Make one wrong move and I'll shoot." As if Fei really could. He didn't like weapons, and so he never used them. However, he made sure she could see his hands. "Errh... Turn around" Fei just stared at her. This seemed to piss her off, so she repeated her order with more forced authority. "I said... turn around"
She began to approach Fei, albeit very slowly. He could tell she had never approached anyone this way and that she was nervous as hell.
"... Are you shaking?" he asked.
"Be quiet!" she demanded. She stopped to assess Fei for a few moments before coming to the conclusion that he wasn't too much of a threat. "... You don't seem to be one of the Kislev soldiers who are after me... but..." She slowly backed away from Fei. Fei took the chance to turn around and get a better look at her. However, this alerted her, and she trained her pistol on him again. "Don't move" she commanded. "I have orders to kill all surface dwellers-Lambs, I come in contact with... It's part of my mission. It's nothing personal." She paused as if to consider asking him a question. She finally decided that it was probably best to do so. "I have a question for you. ... How do I get out of this forest?"
"Are you... lost?" he asked.
This appeared to have pissed her off. "Just answer my question! How do I get out of here?"
"Sorry... but I'm looking for the way out of here too," he answered.
She looked disappointed then. "Oh..." Dejectedly, she looked at the ground, and allowed the pistol to fall to her side.
"How long are you just going to stand there like that? If you're going to shoot me, then hurry up and do it."
This caught the woman completely by surprise. This was the LAST thing she expected Fei to say. "What an odd thing to say! Don't you understand the situation you are in?"
Fei looked down at the ground, a noticeable slump took to his shoulders. "I don't care about my situation... I'm just a guy whose life is worthless... There's no point in me living anyway." He looked up at the woman and boldly took a step towards her, goading her to shoot him.
Rather than piss her off this time, it actually frightened her. "Sta, stay back!" she stammered. She retrained the pistol on Fei's chest, although now she was trembling, and could hardly hold it level. Fei took another slow step towards her. The woman closed her eyes and gritted her teeth, as if afraid of the recoil of the pistol as she fired off a single shot. It completely missed, whizzing three feet to Fei's left.
"What are you aiming at? Here! Shoot me here! C'mon..." Fei took his index finger and tapped his heart twice. He seemed really anxious to end his life.
The strange woman's tone changed from frightened to one of disbelief. "Are... are you mocking me?" she demanded. She had never met such a strange person before. She took a step backwards, and shook her head. "You're weird! Something's very wrong with you! You should at least resist a little bit!"
Suddenly a dark bluish figure dropped and hit the ground behind her. It was a Forest Elf. They were notoriously mean little bastards, and were even known to attack their own kind. She turned around and looked at the newcomer.
"What's this? Who are you?" This was all she managed to get out before the monster smashed her in the head, knocking her to the ground. She didn't move. It was just then that Fei actually noticed the monster. Suddenly he felt he had to protect the woman, and charged the beast.
"Stop! Keep your hands off of 'Elly'!" he screamed.
Fei made short work of the Forest Elf. He looked over at Elly's limp form and noticed that she was still breathing. He rushed to her side. "Are you alright? Hang in there!"
He then lifted Elly from where she lay, and hurried off down the path with her in his arms until he found a much larger clearing. Quickly, he ripped off straps of cloth from the hem of her skirt, and then ran off to a nearby creek to dip them into the water. When he came back he wrapped the cold, moist bandages over the knot on her head. She moaned lightly, but didn't wake. She had a small assortment of scratches and scrapes on her arms and legs so Fei took another strip of her uniform and wrapped them nice and snugly. Afterwards, he made sure she was comfortable and proceeded to build a campfire. There were two reasons for this. One was for warmth, and the second was to keep the night creatures away.
A few hours later, Elly began to stir. It appeared she had forgotten where she was.
"Good, you finally woke up! You didn't move for so long that I started to worry... How are you feeling?" The woman said nothing as she stared into the ground. Fei began to wonder if she could even hear him. "Do you still intend to kill me? Then go right ahead and shoot me! But you'd better not do it while we're in this forest. Forest monsters hate loud noises, you know!"
The woman still refused to say anything. She picked up a nearby twig and started drawing circles into the dirt. She was surprised when she realized that Fei hadn't even bothered to separate her from her pistol. As a matter of fact, he had securely strapped it back into its holster.
"Fine. Don't talk to me if you don't want to... But it wouldn't kill you to thank me for tending your wounds."
The woman looked up at him in surprise. She hadn't even realized he had done so! She looked over herself carefully and found that he had patched her up quite nicely, and even tended to some of the wounds that she had before she even encountered him.
"Th... thanks... but you shouldn't have helped me. Don't think it will save your life though. It really doesn't change a thing."
"What are you so afraid of?" asked Fei.
"I'm not afraid... I'm just being cautious" persisted the woman. It's natural for me to be this cautious considering I've met such a suspicious surface dwelling -Lamb-."
"Hm... Don't you worry. I'm not gonna do anything. Besides you're much more suspicious than I am," said Fei. He was right. The woman did stand out more than he did. Fei had never seen anyone with such strange clothing before in his life.
"Huh..." She was puzzled.
"So, what's your name?" asked Fei.
"I won't give my name to a surface dweller -Lamb," she said stubbornly.
"What's with you and this 'Lamb' thing?" started Fei. "We're both lost in this forest, surrounded by dangerous monsters... Shouldn't we at least be cooperating with each other until we get out of here?"
The woman said nothing as she bit her lip.
"Good. So what's your name? It's going to be hard for us to cooperate with one another without at least knowing each other's names. Anyway, my name is Fei Fong Wong. You can call me Fei."
"I'm...Elhaym. But my parents call me Elly," said Elly.
Fei chuckled. "'Elly', huh? Somehow I already 'knew' that." He didn't know how he 'knew', but he did. She seemed somewhat familiar to him, although he had never seen him before in his life. She gave him a puzzled look. Fei saw this and quickly changed the subject. "Anyway, it's too dangerous to travel in these parts this late at night...Let's wait till daybreak before we continue looking for a way out of here...if that's okay with you?"
"I guess we have no choice, do we?" said Elly. She sat back down next to the campfire and fished for something in her pocket. She pulled out a strange looking biscuit and started chewing on it. From the look on her face, it was apparent she didn't like it. Fei decided it was best not to ask her what it was though, in case she should offer him some.
"Okay then Elly... How about having something to eat?" asked Fei. Somehow, he felt that she didn't need to be chewing on this biscuit that she so obviously didn't like. She looked at him for a moment, smiled, and then pocketed the offending biscuit.
Well this is my first attempt at a Xenogears fic. I hope you guys like it! I decided that since no one has ever completed the first two or three chapters of a novelization of Xenogears, that I would be the first to try. So far, I've beaten a few select websites. I would like to thank Omega Gilgamesh for the ideas for beginning this particular chapter. Please give me some reviews! It encourages me! On another note, what the crap is up with deleting punctuation from the uploaded files?