Cloaks

by sarehptar

After the fact, an alchemist drinks Darjeeling and does a great deal of talking. It's not like things ever went according to plan anyway.

18. Eternal Snow

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Author's Notes: Wow… seven months went by really, really fast. Sorry about that. …I feel like I am always starting these chapters with "sorry". You get an extra sorry this time—because I HATE this chapter! Just to give you a head's up now: it's not good, by any means. My writing style is changing, I'm being heavily influenced by a new fandom and fanfiction, and I just could not find the interest to write this chapter. And there's WAY less Gil than I promised there would be. Oh well, I can't help that. This chapter is a serious emotional roller coaster too… I'm sorry. T.T So many POV issues… Rargh. Kharl had an identity crisis too… Well, just read it and get it over with.

Note: At this time, it may be helpful to have books 8 and 9 at your disposal.

Disclaimer: I can't even satisfy myself with these chapters—there is no way I could satisfy the entire DK fanbase the way Mineko does (and doesn't, grrr, the DK ending was awful…)

Background Music: Before It's Too Late (Goo Goo Dolls)

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Cloaks
By Sarehptar
Chapter 18-
Eternal Snow

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We've reached it: the point where all things must change, the precipice. And we are crowded here, back to back on the edge. One breath after stilling breath, poised to make our final controlled movements.

Don't! Don't leap!

But our hearts are pounding and our blood is beating and there is no stopping now. The calm before the storm is over. The wind is whispering; the snow has begun to fall.

This is the quickening.

We are on the precipice. There is nowhere to go but down.

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What followed Sinistra's birth is, in my mind, nothing but a series of shattered blurs. I was not there—it had not been my eyes that captured Rath's desperation, the Star Princess' determination. I had a role to fulfill and dying on the mountain was not a part of it. So I lingered in shadow, safe and distant. I did not see his blood, feel the manic swell and fall of their power. I did not feel the cold steel press of his blade. I did not feel death; I did not feel the snow. I used to wake from nightmares dreaming that I had. Somehow, knowing that I sat far away and warm made it only feel worse.

Things have become skewed, I'm sure. I was given broken reports from Sinistra, from you, even from the Hime herself. I took shards of memory from the clone. It was a puzzle, blood-stained and missing pieces, edgeless, blank. If the truth is not as I remember it, forgive me. We were all in the darkness those nights.

I had known, before I had ever heard his voice in my dream, where Rath was heading. I had known from the day the Star Princess had revealed the future to me. And knowing that he was going to be there—that I could be there in an instant and stand before him—stirred something in me. I knew that I could not make a move to interrupt fate (it was far too late for that) but I knew that I could not stop myself completely. Not when there was so much laid bare before me. Not when so many pieces were lining up on the board, preparing for the descent to checkmate.

It was easy to make him, that clone. Frighteningly easy actually, taking only a dash of Sinistra's power, another of my own, a few drops of blood. We forged him in quiet, beneath the castle: a wraith of milk white skin in the inky blackness, luminous ivory feathers, lilac strands of hair as fine as spider webs ghosting across a delicate, pale face.

The universe, they say, was made in seven days. I was re-made in four.

He opened my light eyes, bleary and shuttered against the ambient luster of his own clothing, ki.

"Hm," my voice chuckled in the darkness, from his throat, "my favorite cloak pin. How considerate of you to give it to me."

"It suits you."

He smiled softly, standing in a rustle of white fabric that was as familiar as the beating of my heart. Our hearts. "You wouldn't have bought it if it hadn't."

Sinistra wound to stand beneath us, leaning her head up into our mirrored touches. Her amethyst eyes locked with his (mine) and something pasted between them that I was not privy to.

You know already then, what you were born for?

"To die. But we are all born for that."

I could not stop a shudder—not at his voice: it was my own—but at his words and the innate knowledge of his purpose. Gil, Rath, Nadil's minions: they would all be there on the mountain, all with reason to strike me down. Why would I send him, if there was no chance of death? And I, he, knew it. Knew it in a way that I had never meant him too. To dream the sentience of a clone was one thing—to face it was it another.

If I went in his place, how long would it have taken you to notice? I rarely used my power in front of you, and the clone was easily capable of simple magics. He would smile as often as I would; he would be just as careless. I had designed him flawlessly, so that Rath would not be able to tell the difference—I never imagined that I might not be able to tell difference.

It was as simple as thinking I'm real… except, at the time, it didn't seem so simple. It was a blessing that he accepted his inferiority without question, because the sudden thought having to handle myself was exhausting. Would I have accepted my role so easily, had I been in his place? I think I would have fought that fate tooth and nail, fruitless battle or not. I could have forced him to go if he'd refused, but he accepted it all with a smile. As much as it frightens me to admit, I think he was braver than I was. If it meant he got to see, hear, touch the Rath he knew from my memories, he was ready to accept death. I wasn't. I'm still not.

Sinistra coughed a mirthful canine laugh from between us. Whether she was laughing at my thoughts, his, or simply in joy at the fact that there was now another pair of hands to scratch her, I wasn't sure.

Come now, let us find the small one. Sinistra always had an aversion to your name. She had told me once that it was a shadowed thing, confused in your mind with pain and pride. I should have given you a new one, she told me, a proper one, at the very beginning. The nickname she had chosen for you instead made me giggle, but she meant it lovingly. I suppose, in a way, the name was deserved. She was nearly as tall as you when she lifted her head.

I think I was as eager as Sinistra was to present the clone to you. Or maybe "eager" was not the word. I was anxious: not only to see your reaction, but from a subtle fear. Would you be able to tell us apart? My mind said you would not, and that that was a good thing—if we could fool you, who had spent so long by my side, it would be effortless to fool Rath. But something in my throat was welling, caught and clenched between my teeth. I knew you would not be able to tell us apart… I wanted you to tell us apart.

The sun was warm on my face when we climbed at last from the depths of the dark laboratory. A breeze, steady and slow and carrying the smell of the ocean ruffled identical plumes of lilac hair.

"Garfakcy?" I called, chorused by an identical voice. "Garfakcy!" I thought you were close, but it had taken us a good ten minutes of hunting the corridors to even come within hearing distance of you. "Would you come here?" It was a cross between normal speech and a shout.

"Coming," you sounded less than pleased, and Sinistra shook out her fur in pleasure at the sound. I think she was expecting another of your famous explosions. The Left Beast could be decadently malicious when she wanted to be. "What do you need," you came around the nearest corner with a broom over your shoulder, "Master Kha…rl…"

There was a moment of dead silence. There was another moment of dead silence. Green shifted between two pairs of lilac eyes.

"No," you said in a deathly calm voice. In slow and measured movements, you turned on your heel and walked away. "There is dust in my eyes. There is—" The rest of your words were lost underneath Sinistra's ringing barks. I think, if she had not had so much dignity, the spirit manipulator would have rolled right over and cackled herself silly on the marble tiles.

"Oh shut up Shinisu," the double tried to insist between giggles of our own.

Somewhere down the corridor, there came the repeated slamming of flesh on stone. It happened to be, I discovered as we caught up with you a few seconds later, your forehead meeting the granite wall.

"WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?!" Ooh, delayed reaction. "Master Kharl—" you looked between us and your grip on the broom handle looked tight enough to shatter the wood. "You better have a good explanation for this." I was very glad at that minute that you were not a demon… That green glare was scary enough without any fangs to back it up.

"It's very simple really—" the clone began, smile just as mischievous as my own.

"—just a bit of duplication magic!" I finished.

"Which one of you is the real one?" I think there actually were indents in the broom handle now.

"Which one of us…" The clone tapped his bottom lip with a white-gloved finger. "Well, that would depend on your definition of real, wouldn't it?" Sinistra was panting in an effort to get her breath back. "Now if you were to ask which of us was the original…"

Something dangerous sparked across your face before the ash burst into shimmers around your free hand.

"Master Kharl…" It sounded more like one of Sinistra's growls than real words, low and deadly. I think my chuckles must have sounded nervous.

"I'm the original," I waved placatingly, dispelling the ash and encouraging you to release the helpless broom.

"You couldn't tell us apart Garfakcy," the clone sighed, "I'm hurt." Just as I would have done, he made light of my worries, writing off the underlying fear with exaggeration. But even that couldn't drive away the awkwardness of standing beside myself and knowing that it wasn't as simple as I'd made it sound. He was a living, breathing demon—wearing my appearance so well that even the person I trusted most could not find the flaw.

Perhaps that's what startled me: there was no flaw.

You growled in response to the clone's pleasant mockery, turning to level that caustic green gaze on me. "And why, exactly, did you feel the need to do this?!" You pointed at the double, hand shaking in barely suppressed frustration. "One of you is more than enough…" you groaned under your breath.

"Not for this, it's not," I answered, keeping the turmoil from my voice. "I need to send you some place the Hime has forbidden me from going." Where I could go but won't.

"Huh?" Your green eyes opened wide in interest, that familiar fire lighting behind them. "Where?"

"To Emphaza," the clone murmured, leaning easily against a marble column, half way in and out of the hallway shadows, "where the Star Princess, Cesia, Rath and Gil are all gathered." Sinistra had long since sobered, and stood beside him like a breathing pool of darkness.

"Rath… Gil?" You looked between us for a second, torn between confusion and ire. "What's going on there?" A clear desire to know what secrets I was keeping etched itself onto your face and would not leave, even after I shook my head, dismissing the question.

"Why don't we talk about this over tea?" I felt the first stirrings of a headache waking just behind my temple.

"Oh, can we have lavender tea?" the double asked through a smile, pushing himself up from the column to walk beside me down the corridor and toward the tea room.

"I always make lavender tea," Garfakcy started grumpily, "it's—"

"Our favorite!" the clone and I laughed, flashing identical grins in your direction. Throwing your hands up in abject fury, you stomped off in the opposite direction, toward the kitchen, muttering to yourself all the way.

"One of them has got to go—and right about now, I don't really care which one!"

Sinistra's huffing laughs continued all the way into the tea room.

The chamber was bright, lit by the high and crystalline-cut windows facing the sea. When I took my usual seat, the double pulled a free armchair over to sit beside me, obligingly reaching down to stroke Sinistra's ears. I tried not to be jealous that she would sit with a double over me, but a quiet stare from her amethyst eyes made the feeling seem petty. I wasn't going to my death.

"So then Hime-sama has finished the replacement Wind Staff…" In the soft golden light of the tea room, the double looked tired—as tired as I felt.

"It seems that way. She'll give the staff to Cesia and the stage will be set for the end." I traced floral patterns on my chair with an idle finger.

The end? Sinistra laughed again, but now it was cold and hollow. Shame that it won't be. The clone's hand was stiff and tensed on her head, white glove stark against midnight fur.

"It's almost poetic." I leaned back in my seat, eyes moving to watch sun spots and the shadows of leaves dance on the tea room walls. "Emphaza… where the Wind Dragon slept… where Gil was born… where Rath will die."

The clone said nothing in reply, lilac eyes half-lidded and vacant as he withdrew into his own thoughts.

"What will you tell Garfakcy?" he said at last, still not looking up at me.

"What I always tell him."

Nothing. Sinistra crossed her paws, growling softly.

There was a long moment of silence while I searched for some way to refute her—the problem was that I couldn't. The truth was hard enough to share when I had no choice; to give it freely to you would have broken something indescribable between us. Any trust you had for me, least of all.

"In a situation like this, you won't be able to get away with telling him nothing." A hard lilac stare bored into my eyes (how odd to be on the end of one of my own glares!) and he did not look away. "I imagine the situation is going to be utterly uncontrollable on the mountain. If you are not careful, his life will be in danger."

"His life was in danger the moment—" My less than pleasant comment was cut off by your sudden entry, and you pushed the tea cart into the room with effortless familiarity. Snowy bone china shimmered dully in the sunlight, as did your impossibly hard green eyes. Without a word, you served the tea. None of the frustration and curiosity that was surely running rampant in your mind showed through in your measured, graceful movements; you never had and never would spill a single drop.

The double took the steaming cup gingerly in his hand, softly breathing in the calming scent of lavender and citrus.

"My first taste of Garfakcy's tea," he murmured, and then added even more quietly, "I feel like I've always had it." He made a move to bring the cup to his lips only to be unrepentantly slapped over the head by you.

"Don't drink it yet stupid, you'll burn your tongue," you groused, and I watched with a sense of fear and wonder. How many times had I sat in that very same chair, over the very tea, and been slapped in the very same manner? It was like watching a moment of our lives from the outside—frightening but simultaneously amazing. Was my smile really that carefree?

"I'm so thirsty I wouldn't mind burning my tongue right this moment," he said—and they were my words, in the same laughing tone I always said them.

"Well then, go right ahead. I won't have any sympathy when you complain later." It was the line that Garfakcy always said—but this time it came from my mouth, startling everyone in the room, myself included.

The clone's momentary happiness vanished like a candle being blown out, and he settled back stiffly in his chair as if the familiar scene had not been played out at all. Your confusion lapsed into impatience as silence settled over us, and huffing, you threw yourself onto a footstool and frowned sharply in my direction.

"Would you mind telling me what is going on now?" You snatched and bit viciously into a crumpet from the tea tray.

The brush of Sinistra's power pushed against my mind, and I knew that she was talking—but the words were not for me. I watched the clone's white-gloved fingers tighten around the china teacup before his face lifted in the brightest—and most false—grin I knew how to make.

"Shinisu, will you show me around the castle? I want to see it with my own eyes." He stood without waiting for my blessing, and with Sinistra at his heels, crossed the chamber in a swirl of white. Stopping in the doorway, he lifted a lilac eyebrow and smiled in a knowing manner.

Be careful with what you say, but do not say too little. Sinistra's omnipotent voice rang in my head while they vanished completely, flashes of ivory and breathing darkness.

Steeling myself, I took a sip of the hot tea, feeling the sting on the back of my throat. You tapped a foot impatiently against one of the clawed wooden legs of the ottoman.

"Garfakcy," I chose the words carefully, "Rath has left Lykouleon's protective barrier. He and Cesia have both gone to Emphaza in search of a way to resurrect Crewger."

"There's something there that can bring things back to life?"

Yes and… "No." I loosened my stiff grip on the pale teacup. "Nadil set guardians there to distract his enemies. Clearly it had more effect than he expected. It would be quite simple for Shydeman and Shyrendora to snatch Cesia away beneath our noses."

"What are you saying?" I could see the pieces falling into place behind your eyes. I was momentarily reminded that you were so much older than you looked. "I hope you're not expecting me to protect that prissy princess and that Dragon."

"Unfortunately, that is exactly what I am expecting." I looked away to avoid your glare. "Ironically enough, Nadil's minions chose Gil to guard the mountain. That will be, unfortunately for them, a serious flaw in their plans. I need you to keep him distracted…" My words trailed off as I imagined the battles a few nights' time would bring. "If Gil faces Rath unaddled… I'm not sure who would win."

"I can't believe Gil is still alive," you muttered, leaning dangerously far backward on the stool to stare blindly at the tea room ceiling.

"I doubt he is the same boy we knew."

"Good." A flash of something dark slipped across your face as you spoke.

"Gil is apparently guarding the mountain furiously—Cesia, at the very least, must make it past him."

"Why?" You tore your eyes from the carvings on the ceiling to stare at me as if you could read secrets off my forehead. I sipped my tea instead of answering. Half expecting you to press for a reply, I was surprised when you moved to contemplate your own teacup in silence.

"And why the double?" you asked finally.

"Shydeman and Shyrendora will, undoubtedly, be there. I'm sure you'd rather not have to deal with them alone."

"I could run circles around them in the dark." You swilled the sienna tea pensively.

"It will be very dark there," I muttered against the hot china rim of my cup. "And there is no love lost between you, Gil, and Rath. It will be boiling pot of enemies."

"Hmph." I wondered for a moment if you were angry with me. It would be just like you to see the clone as a personal insult, as if I didn't trust you enough to handle the mission alone. Was that the case? I caught myself thinking that it wasn't—but perhaps it was true, and I didn't think you, a little human, could manage the maelstrom that was sure to be brewing on the mountain.

No, it wasn't a lack of trust by any means… It was perhaps that I trusted you to follow my whims too well. Especially in this case, with the future of our world hinging on the events to come, my whims absolutely could not come to pass. I couldn't let you go alone and do just what I would want.

"Listen Garfakcy… it would not be unfortunate for us if Gil were able to kill Rath. Neither would it be a loss if Rath killed Gil." How was I to know you would take those passing words to heart? I never imagined you would take that as blessing to drive Gil to near madness in his pursuit of my son. But that was just it, wasn't it? You knew that I still wanted Rath, and you never did fail an order.

"Please understand, your and Sinistra's safety is extremely important to me. I wouldn't send a double with you if it wasn't. If the situation gets out of hand, you two are to return here immediately."

"And the clone?"

"If worse comes to worse," I said, "leave him behind."

Crossing your arms and then uncrossing them as if you couldn't quite choose how to sit, a decadent grin lit on your face. There was that dark edge to you that always appeared before bloodshed, and I knew you were anticipating Emphaza far more than I was.

"When will we go?"

"Tomorrow night. Rath and Cesia will have arrived by then."

You nodded in response, tapping your teacup's handle with a disinterested finger. Shadows of leaves danced over the walls, and for a long time, we sat silently, listening to the distant songs of birds. On the abandoned seat beside me, my double's untouched tea cooled.

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Breakfast the next morning was the perhaps the oddest meal the castle had ever seen. Between the double and I asking you to pass the syrup (the napkins, the juice, the oranges, so on) at exactly the same time, and discovering that not only did we eat the same things, but that we ate the same things in the same proportions (resulting in more that one squabble over who would have the next waffle), you looked ready to murder right there over the strawberry jam.

Needless to say, both the double and I made ourselves scarce after breakfast. I retreated to the library as quickly as I could, curling up in an armchair and losing myself in a history of Hyuray.

…last bastion of the Light Flower in the dark times before the fall of…

Undoubtedly, the clone evaded you throughout the day as well. I heard Sinistra barking distantly more than once. Still, all too quickly, the day bled into twilight, and I called you with an ash spell to the main hall.

The double, as if having read my thoughts (or perhaps having had them himself), was already waiting, leaning on the mantle over the grand fireplace like he had lived there decades. The soft fire behind him stained his cloak red-orange, shadowing his face until his eyes were only pools of luminous white, staring unwaveringly at me. Sinistra stretched out before him, a misshapen puddle of shadow. The unending tick-tick of the clock on the wall was the only sound that split our silence.

"When you get there," I murmured as you joined us at last, "look for the Star Princess." You grumbled a bit, as if you'd rather look for Nadil himself. "If she is not ready to perform her piece of the story, there is no sense in us acting." I pulled at the seam of my white glove. "She may be… adverse to your presence. Tell her that you are simply there… to be of service." Your grumbling increased, slipping over your face as a childish pout.

"Remember what I told you," I warned. "Cesia must be made to act according to the plan. And you all must stay out of Rath's way." For a minute it looked like you might press your "why?", but you shut your mouth with a gentle click of teeth against teeth. From his place before the fire, the clone narrowed my lilac eyes, looking between us slowly. An unspoken question played among his fangs for a moment, and I answered it with my own wavering gaze. Garfakcy won't disobey my orders. But there was a lilting voice in the back of my head, whispering…

"Are you ready?" I met your green stare again and you nodded sharply. "Then go." Instantly you stood, turning to look back at the double. Sinistra rose to her paws, shaking the long fur of her dark mane.

"Go on," the double stared at me as he spoke to you. "I'll be with you in a minute." Your emerald eyes darted between us for a few seconds, but when I made no move to stop you, you shrugged one metal-coated shoulder. In a soft cloud of ash, you and Sinistra vanished from me.

Silence, heavy and dark, stretched out between the double and I. At last, he lifted himself from the mantle, crossing before the quiet fire to stand shoulder to shoulder with me. I did not turn my head to look at him, and he did not look at me. For a long moment, I thought he would laugh or curse me. I could feel the empty smile on his lips; it was mirrored on my own.

"Should I bring him home?" The double's voice was stifling, a breath of sadness and newly-born, quickly-dying dreams. I did not need to ask who he was talking about. Should I bring Rath home?

How could he ask such a thing? How could he ask, knowing all that I knew, had done, would do? I could feel the empty smile on his lips. And what was I to say? Everything in my heart, every beat of the blood in my (his) veins was screaming yes.

"No," I whispered, "no." I could go no further, could not justify or ignore the desperation crying in the back of my mind.

What answer was he looking for, expecting? What answer would he have given, in my place? I'll never know. Instead the white glove on his hand rose to fist in the loose collar of my cloak. It was the barest of touches, a ghost of my own fragile hand, gone as soon as I realized it was there. The brief connection stung, as if some of his sadness, the knowledge of his death, had wrapped cold tendrils around my heart in the half-second, one half-tick of the clock on the wall, that we had been aligned. I might have shivered, I might have laughed—I couldn't hear anything but my own thoughts.

"Good-bye," he said, shattering my disquietude.

"Good-bye."

His disappearance was utterly silent, no flash of light, wave of power, tolling of the clock's bells to signal his leaving the world. For a long while I stood still, feeling his hand—my hand—on me. The clock ticked slowly, relentlessly on. When I turned at last to leave the room, a single white feather danced across the marble floor. From where I stood, before the fire, I cast formless shadow over half of chamber, over the white-grey tile, over his (my) feather. In my darkness, it gleamed brightly.

I left the room with the ghost of his smile in my mind and wisps of the future tightening around my throat.

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It was a nervous six hours on my part as I waited for some word from your end. At last, a shimmer of ash and white light blurred up before me, painting a monochrome picture of you in the air. You were sitting on a chair that didn't make the transmission, one knee propped up and a frustrated look on your face.

"We met up with your pretty princess," you snarled, without waiting for me to say hello. I set the book I had been trying (and failing) to concentrate on aside.

"So then she's finished it…"

"She wouldn't tell me anything except that she needs another two days. And she's got a damn bodyguard now!" You pointed to a bruise on your face that I hadn't even noticed. "Apparently he wasn't too happy with us demanding an audience with the Hime."

"I hope you didn't use violence to get around him." A sudden flash of a rather unpleasant battle went through my mind, and the thought of the Star Princess getting caught between her guardian and your anger sent a spark of worry down my spine.

"Che…" You looked away. "I didn't hit the guy. Your double stepped in and explained things." A glint of displeasure marred your face. "I don't like how he has your memory…"

"An unfortunate necessity." I shifted to lean back in my chair, tapping idly at the lacquered table under my white gloves. "How are the other players in our little drama?"

"Rath and Cesia are staying at an inn at the foot of Emphaza. Conviently enough, Gil's there too. Apparently he's related to the old innkeep?" What should have a statement came across as a question, and your green eyes focused on me with barely concealed curiosity. An old man related to Gil? Not his father—he'd been alone with his younger brother all those years ago. All those years ago…

"Na Barl, clumsy little brothers should look at their feet, not the birds."

Suspicion, like a metal tang, crept up my throat. Gil was ageless; his younger brother was not. Undoubtedly Shydeman and Shyrendora had sent him to Emphaza… but to send him back to his family? It seemed cruel. And then crueler still, as I thought of his younger brother's aged face and Gil's once beautiful smile—the smile that I broke.

When I made no attempt to answer your questions, you slumped back in the invisible chair, movement sending sparkles of ash off your translucent form like dust rising off a long immobile statue. "Shydeman and Shyrendora are holed up here like the rats they are, and the Blue Officer is here too. Rath, Cesia, and… what's his name?" You blinked.

"Kaistern." The word came out only a little choked, a little black with hatred and the memory of bloody snow.

"Yeah, yeah." You waved a dismissive hand as if you'd expected me not to know. "He's trying to get up the mountain too, and then there's Rath and Cesia, sneaking around like spies... And," a malicious smile darted across your lips, "Gil's not too happy about intruders on his mountain."

"They've already tried to reach the cave?" My teeth clenched of their own accord, painfully.

"All three of them. Shinisu went and distracted Rath and Cesia, but I figured I'd let the Blue Officer get up to Gil." You chuckled quietly, and I could barely restrain a sneer. I hoped Gil would kill that interfering, foolish, cowardly—the insults could have gone on forever.

"There's no point in Cesia and Rath reaching the cave if the Star Princess isn't there to meet them."

"You didn't even need to tell me that." Pride and impatience tinged your voice.

"And where," I wondered suddenly, "is my double?"

"Oh who the hell knows?! He won't listen to me! He's probably off 'exploring'." You lifted your fingers in mock quotations. "I don't like him at all Master Kharl, and just so you know—"

"Let it go Garfakcy. He's really there as more of a precaution than anything."

"Hmph," you muttered, crossing one arm over the other.

"Report to me again as soon as Rath and Cesia make further movements."

"Yes Master Kharl." You straightened in your seat. "Good night." The transmission flickered as you unwound it.

"Sleep well Garfakcy."

That night, I dreamt of Gil.

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"Why won't you love me?" The taut caramel line of his jaw in my pale hand jerks again, shaking desperately to escape my grip. "It's not a complicated thing Gil."

"Take me home, please." He's given up demanding, and he's broken in now, domesticated enough to beg. "I need to go home." His voice is hoarse and quiet, a rasp and a childish crack. He won't mention his brother to me—he is afraid I'll hurt the little boy too.

"You are home Gil. You are home." If I repeat it enough times, it will become our truth. His golden eye, ringed with circles of darkness because he is afraid to sleep, dart between me and the stone door behind us. I can almost feel his thoughts crawling along my skin, cold and wet and thick as blood. No Gil, you can't escape. I won't let you leave my side.

His clothing is torn again, claw-size swaths cutting through the fabric and his nutshell skin below.

"Stop this. There's no reason." My hand releases his face to fist in his tattered sleeve. He pulls away again, pushing himself farther into the corner of the room. "You're going to scar yourself."

"They won't stay." His hands are shaking, claws sinking into the stone beneath his palms. He is looking away, not speaking to me. "The marks won't stay. They just… You made me this way. You made me a monster!" His entire body shakes with fury, tightens with fear. "I hate you." He won't look at me.

Bitterness and displeasure fight in my chest, pressing painfully hard against my heart. How dare he? After all I intended for him—I take a single deep breath, pushing my macabre thoughts away. He is like a stubborn child who needs to be coaxed, pampered, killed with kindness.

"I brought you a book about birds. You like birds, don't you?"

"N-No." It is a lie, but there is force behind it, as if it will soon be true. Suddenly he finds strength I thought long gone, and lunges forward to slam the book from my hand, claws raking across my wrist and raising thin red lines instantly. "I don't want to read! I don't want to love you! I don't want to be this way! Let me go, now."

Youki, dark and hot, rises again in the room, and the black expanse of pupil in his open eye contracts to a slit. The force of the power he has no idea how to control sets his purple hair on end; his fangs catch and bury in his bottom lip.

"Stop it Gil," I warn.

"No. If you won't let me go, I'll kill you and walk out over your corpse."

Where is the sweet boy who had smiled like an angel in the far North? How can this monster be him, the one I had meant to take beneath my wings? "I don't want to hurt you."

"You already have." And I know that it will not be as simple as pushing him back—because that scarred eye slides open, all darkness and death and stinging like salt on an open wound.

Gil howls as his bones shift beneath stretching muscle. A russet pelt rips through his dark skin like fire rolling uncontrolled, and it is only moments before the demon cat stands before me. The fur along his spine rises to stand on end.

Without another word, though I know his demon form can speak, he pounds against the floor, jaws opening wide to close around my throat.

"Must it always come to this?" I step back easily, using ki to repel the claws he heaves toward my face.

As I have done every day prior, I bury my own hand into fur between his ears, holding him back as he strains to tear me in two. The ash spell hardly seems to need my acknowledgement to flicker to life, silting, grey and dim, into his eyes, nose, mouth. The poison in it goes to work immediately.

Within seconds, Gil's monstrous form collapses against me, his power draining away as swiftly as a puddle in the desert. The ash spell in his system slows his brain function to a crawl, until even the blinking of his scarred eye is drawling and the slit pupil dilates impossibly far. His demonic form slips off of him like a disguise, leaving the torn and bloody form of a young boy in my arms. The poison was too strong, perhaps, and it sends tremors through his body as it mangles his nervous system…or maybe—and Gil's unscarred eye is half-lidded but shaking in its socket—the shivers are more from terror and shock than the ash.

"Don't be afraid. It's all right." I try to smile, knowing the hopeful look and words before it are both lies. The focus dies in Gil's eye, and he chokes out some little noise around the numbing magic. Mustering the strength left in him, he picks up a hand and tries to scratch at my face. The blow is weak, like the brush of a kitten's paw, and his palm is cold where traces my cheek.

For a moment, he is the older brother again, gentle and quiet and content. He is everything I hoped he would be, for a single moment. I trace the jagged mark across his closed eye, hesitantly brushing purple bangs from his face. A soft rumble starts low in his throat, a cat's purr—and I can tell he doesn't want to make the sound.

"I only wanted you to love me." The words are harder to say than ever before—and I wonder if maybe it is because I mean them more now. My hand sinks from his face to press against the cool tile beneath us, and the chill is a relief and a distraction.

"I'm not an animal," he chokes.

And I can't help but wish he was.

-)o(o)o(-

Experiment 8918-K: "Replica"

Recovered Memory Feather 8

(Handle with care)

I could feel her power the moment we reached Emphaza, and it rang through me as clear and sharp as a bell. Ignoring the squawks of my—no, of Kharl's—assistant, I took a barely worn path up the mountain, Shinisu winding silently at my heels. The dark leaves of the forest, glinting dully in the twilight, seemed strange and foreign. It might have been because I had never seen leaves until my birth a few days ago, but I think it was that they were flora of the Northern continents: thicker, hardier than the fair-weather foliage on Arinas.

Regardless, the forest seemed the wrong place to meet such a gentle woman. From the Alchemist's memories, I know her to be fragile but deceiving, impossibly strong but endlessly kind. She did not disappoint me in the slightest.

I pushed aside the last of the branches crossing over the path, and immediately the glimmer on her hair in the last traces on sunlight and the shadows playing over her white dress caught my eye. She stood with her back to us, and did not turn, even when I made my presence more than apparent.

"Hey lady!" Garfakcy caught up and stood beside me, and his call finally made her stir. She turned to gaze over her shoulder, and I caught a glimpse of roseate irises before a sudden blaze of power and a flash of green cut off my view.

"What the hell?!" You pushed your arm up from your face, forcing back the sheathed sword that had tried to come down on your head. Effortlessly, the wielder of a sword—a green-haired man with equally green eyes—leapt back, slipping into a protective stance before the Hime.

"Grinfish," she fisted a hand in the man's sleeve, "please stop. They are not my enemies." But by all means, shouldn't we have been? The man's green eyes narrowed even further, but then a quiet, inexplicable smile swept across his face.

"Your mother would be upset if she knew the company you kept." His smile didn't fall, even as he spoke.

For a moment, it looked like the Hime would reply—but she only sighed, drifting from behind him to stand between us. "You… You're not the Lord Alchemist."

"He felt that his actual presence here would not be… prudent. I am a double sent in his place." Discomfort settled like sediment in her roseate eyes. "You won't find me lacking." At last, she crossed the distance between us to catch my arm, as she had done with Kharl at their last meeting.

"Why has he sent you?" It was not reproach tingeing her voice, but it might as well have been.

"To be of aide to you, Hime-sama." I couldn't help the slight smile that picked at the corners of my mouth—a smile that only grew stronger when her guardian made a noise of disapproval. "With the least amount of interference as possible, of course. And I do solemnly swear to stay away from Rath." It was a lie, and I think she knew that. Nevertheless, the bare traces of skepticism that had marred her brow eased away, and she seemed genuinely relieved.

"So then, are we in agreement?" I grinned in the green-haired man's direction as I spoke to her. "Allies?"

"Of course." Her soft pink eyes glimmered in the last traces of twilight.

-)o(o)o(-

It had just begun to lighten with the coming of dawn when you woke me. And I can tell you, from experience, waking to the sight of a transparent person standing in the middle of one's bedroom, particularly a rather frustrated person, can be most disconcerting.

"Garfakcy?!" I sat up in bed, pushing aside a mountain of blankets.

"The situation is—" you paused, and I could see you mentally searching for the right word, "—worse that you told me to expect."

"What now?" I fell back against my throw pillows, feeling lingering bitterness from my dream of Gil and the first pound of a headache from lack of sleep.

"Shyrendora and Shydeman have Gil under some sort of mind control. They've given him…" Another pause, and I was beginning to wonder what sort of editing you had done to this story before telling it to me. "They've turned him against you completely. He seems to think he can get 'revenge' by killing you. And he didn't seem aware at all that Shyrendora and Shydeman are manipulating his every action."

"What did you say to him?"

Your ash-silver face split in a wicked smile. "Nothing you wouldn't have wanted me to say. Just gave him a few things to think about." Errantly, you waved your hand around, scattering shimmering trails of ash through the air. "It's just my job to get him confused, right? I hardly have to do a thing—his mind is a mess from Shyrendora's boorish work."

"They always did put speed before artistry." The tasseled edge of a throw pillow danced as I let out a heavy, huffing breath. "Continue as you have," I muttered. "It's best if Gil faces Rath with a completely shattered picture of the situation." I couldn't have the boy thinking clearly. If he were to question Shyrendora's control or your intervention at all, it would lead to more trouble than I—and the tremulous future the Star Princess was building—needed to face.

"He didn't kill the Blue Dragon officer either. I saw the guy slouching off after Gil left him for dead."

I think there might have been a visible pout on my face. "Gil can never do anything the way I want, can he?"

"I don't know why you didn't kill Gil at the very start." A hint of old grievances flashed across your luminous face.

I didn't answer, because I knew my reply would have made you furious. You can't hurt the people you love Garfakcy. Instead, I simply shook my head dismissively, as if I didn't know myself why I had not destroyed Gil like I destroyed all my other failed experiments.

"Everything else is fine? Sinistra has nothing to add after seeing Rath?"

Suddenly her long snout pushed into the transmission, fur outlined as a dusting of silver. Rath is... her eyes narrowed in thought, very beautiful. I do not think I have or will ever come across another soul like his. There are a thousand tiny facets to it. I wish I could have lingered longer to inspect him.

"I suppose he has your approval then, Shinisu?" Something like relief coursed through me, though I have no idea why I had been anxious.

For a long moment, there was silence from your end, and the only movement was your hand flickering through her mane.

I can see why you want to get him away from the Dragons. They are an insult to his capability, she said at last. There was a flicker in her translucent eye that said we should talk about it later, when my replies would not be overheard. Though you were never capable of hearing Sinistra, that did not mean you could not gather the nature of our conversation from my words alone.

"Has my double returned yet?"

"I'm here!" a cheery voice called just before the clone pushed his way into the sphere of transmission as well.

"Get off!" you growled from where you were crushed between his shoulder and Sinistra's side. The clone, of course, ignored you completely.

"And I was not 'exploring' Garfakcy," he sniffed in mock indignation. "I was talking some more with the Hime and her guardian. She's rather fond of the Blue Dragon Officer." His lilac eyes caught and held mine for a long moment. "Apparently Kaistern is here looking for a way to save Rath from death."

"So then it's just as the Saffron Officer said…" Rath's warring dragon and demon bloods, along with the waning power of the Light Dragon, were slowly causing the collapse of Illuser's body.

"But Kaistern still believes he's seeking the Wind Dragon. Undoubtedly the Hime's message will strike a serious blow to him, when she is finally ready to deliver it." The clone's smile sank a little.

"Why does she need another day?" I sat up a bit, disentangling myself from the sponge of pillows attempting to absorb me.

The double's smile faded entirely, and he shook his head slowly. "She's too pure for all of this."

That was the only answer he gave me, and the last words I ever heard him speak. You shoved Sinistra and the double away with an incensed huff, and cut the transmission off with "Are we done now? Good."

"Good-bye!" I called, but the ash was already breaking apart and disappearing like trails of smoke in the air.

-)o(o)o(-

Experiment 8918-K: "Replica"

Recovered Memory Feather 12

(Handle with care)

"Grinfish has gone to watch Kaistern and Gil." The Hime turned to me, rose locks drifting in waves stark against her ivory dress.

"And what will you do, Princess?"

"I believe… that I am ready. Will you accompany me to the cavern where Hayate once slept?"

"Of course, my lady." I reached to take the hand she offered, and the soft brush of her fingers against mine seemed suddenly tragic. From Kharl's memory I had known her to be a gentle, overly pure creature—but meeting her for myself made that image a thousand times sharper. She was beyond gentleness, beyond purity. She was a being that was wholly too perfect for our world, and every moment she lingered beside me, I felt as if I was polluting something precious.

She only smiled softly, glimmering in the darkness that cloaked us.

With a simple spell for distraction, I turned Nadil's minions away from us. I take the credit for it, but I think the Hime's magic had more to do with it than I did. She seemed to have an aura of protection that followed her wherever she went.

The cavern itself pulsed softly with ancient magic—the gale of magic that Kharl had felt years ago, when he had first come to Yuba. The Wind Dragon… A force of strength unparalleled in this world, even by the Dragon Tribe's pride, Deus. Standing in the white stone cave felt like standing in the eye of a storm, surrounded on each side by an impossible wind, spinning infinitely on. There was a dead sort of stillness to the room, not even the barest hint of breeze in the air that we breathed.

But the cavern seemed to glow of its own accord, emanating pure white light that was simply right. The Star Princess settled, with more grace than I thought possible, onto a rock shelf cut, as if purposefully, in the far wall. For a long moment I simply stood beside her, lilac eyes tracing the white cloth covering the replacement Wind Staff. I wanted to ask to see it, but something told it was not my place. The creation of that staff was between Kharl and the princess, and it felt like a personal ikon of theirs.

For a long we sat in silence, each of lost in thoughts that neither of us wished to upset. At last, she turned roseate eyes on me, and there was a deep sadness in them at stabbed at something inside me.

"Will you take a message to the Lord Alchemist for me?" Her voice was almost tremulous, so quiet it did not echo in the room.

"Of course," I said, but my smile was empty. She was so trusting of me—believed so thoroughly in Kharl that she never thought to second guess my promise, never thought that I might make some bid to see Rath, to interfere with the situation. She was too sweet to think about the fact that the world did not need another Alchemist; that I was not born to last forever.

"Tell him that I…" She looked away, staring into the black tunnel entrance. "I will miss him."

"Consider your message delivered. I know he will be pleased to hear it. And I know that he will miss you as well. You are a dear—" I stopped suddenly, unsure of to finish. What was she to Kharl? An acquaintance, a precious ally? "You are a dear friend to him."

She gave me a genuine, warm smile that I treasured long after it left her face.

Briefly, I wondered what was going on outside the cavern. The last radiance of Hayate's power prevented me from easily sensing other ki, but I could make out the flares of Rath and Gil's powers, slamming and dancing into and around each other. Garfakcy had followed the plan, and Cesia would be on her way up the mountain.

It was only minutes later that Grinfish slipped into the cave, green eyes sparking with his own version of quiet interest and determination.

"Princess, they will be here soon," he bowed lightly as he approached her.

"I know, I sense them as well." If she could actually feel them, her power went far beyond what I had expected. Even now, as Cesia came nearer to the entrance of the cave, I could only feel the barest trace of her demonic aura.

"I must tell them the truth about the Wind Dragon… and the Wind Dragon Knight."

"Shall I remove a certain pair of obstacles in Cesia's path?" I stood straighter, looking between the princess and her guardian with new purpose.

"Thank you," she smiled.

"I will go with you," the green-haired man's eyes were still cool when they swept over me.

"Of course." In a swill of white and black, we turned away from the princess's luminous cavern and walked together into the darkness.

Shydeman and Shyrendora were haunting the tunnels near the entrance of the cave, their long silver hair shining despite the poor light. All Kharl's memories of them were thick with disdain and displeasure, and I knew them only as he knew them—a pestilence to the name youkai, subservient and brutish minions of Nadil.

"Well," I chuckled loudly to my green-eyed companion, "the legends are true! This cave really is haunted by a hideous beast—Shyrendora, it's so nice to see you again."

"Alchemist!" she screeched rather than said, spinning on her stiletto heel to train light eyes on me. Shydeman pulled a restraining arm before her, and just as quickly as she had lost her composure, she regained it, dark expression easing away into a mockery of coyness. "Come to meddle in Lord Nadil's affairs, again?"

"You'd know more about meddling than I," I chuckled.

"What are you doing here?" Shydeman's narrow eyes darted between me and the princess's guardian. I could see his fingers clenching and unclenching at his sides, as if he wished to engage me in battle there and then. But we were demons of decorum, and more than anything, youkai politics were—and will always be—a game of smiling faces and hidden blades to be buried in your foes' (who are also your allies) backs.

"I'm afraid I do not have the time to explain myself. There are some very important guests on their way, and I'm going to have to ask you to leave." Grinfish tensed at my words, hand sliding to the sheathed sword on his back. But it was hardly necessary: as soon as I had said the words, I had wrapped the twins in an undetectable ash spell, and just as Shydeman made a move to threaten us, the dust flared to life, rising in a cloud of grey feather shapes and freezing them in their places.

"I hear Draqueen is lovely this time of year," I joked to Grinfish, half to hide the sudden strain on my power as the twins identical demonic ki retaliated against the ash magic. Even if I had tried to hide it, the princess' guardian seemed to feel their strength threatening to overthrow mine, and instantly his own, incredibly strange, aura lit and flowed into the ash spell.

"Give my regards to Lykouleon, won't you?" I managed to chuckle over Shyrendora's hiss as the spell finished, flashing pure white and then fading away to nothing. There was not a single trace of Nadil's minions left behind. "That won't keep them away for long," I said to Grinfish, "but it will be long enough."

"Where do you intend to go now?" He had left his hand on the strap of the sword sheath, and made no move to let go now.

"My share of the story is done. I suppose I will just go home." Except that Kharl's castle was no home to me, and I had no intention of simply leaving.

Out of the cavern, I could feel Rath's spiritual power resonating inside me—and Gil's was waning quickly.

Grinfish nodded and followed me through the entrance of the cave, then slipped silently away, fading into the forest as if he had never existed at all. I could hear the approaching beat of Cesia's (and someone else's) footsteps, and as quietly as Grinfish, I vanished into the darkness of the mountain.

-)o(o)o(-

"Lord Kharl!" Your silvery ash form swirled up, stark in the dim light of the library. "Rath has engaged Gil. Cesia's gone off to the cave."

"Well done Garfakcy. How is Rath faring in the battle?" I took stock of you, noticing you were short of breath—and running somewhere even as you spoke with me.

"Not well," you muttered, hiding a smile that I did not miss. Something inside me tightened, and I wondered suddenly what you had said to Gil to provoke him. "But Gil lost the ability to turn into a cat. He killed his niece, and his horror weakened Shyrendora's mind control."

"Without his demonic form, Rath will destroy Gil easily."

"I'm looking forward to it." And your voice was darkness itself.

"Who the hell do you think you are?!" A dread deeper than a well to the center of the world fills up in me, at the distant call of your voice—darker than darkness itself. I push from my desk, scattering papers but hardly caring as I ghost from the dim library.

There is something inside me screaming, saying I should have never let you down there, never let you near the demon boy named Gil—and there is something like horror close behind, horror for things I had never thought about until only a moment ago.

"You don't even care!"

"Garfakcy!" I slam through the stone doorway, a shimmer of white and lilac. "Stop, now!"

But my words go ignored as you clench your slender fist again and drive it into the side of Gil's face. The maroon-haired boy makes a move to push you away, golden eye narrowing into a dangerous slit.

"Go to hell," Gil spits, trying to pull himself upright with the edge of the table.

Ash is in the air before I have time to make a move, and the tip of your blade buries itself in the nut-brown skin of his throat. That child's hand of yours is fisting in his hair, ripping him forward on to the false steel of your blade. A single drop of red rolls over the silver between you, and there is hell in your black-emerald eyes.

"Ungrateful… You ungrateful bastard." It's a serpent's hiss, low and cold with unbreakable fury. "You goddamn—!"

Gil is coughing hoarse laughter, like he's won a battle that hasn't begun.

Life jerks back into me and immediately I am moving, darting over the shattered porcelain plate on the floor, over a blood red apple and all the other food you had brought to Gil, not knowing…

You thrash against me as I pull you away from him, howling blindly in a rage that seems unending. And for a moment I don't know what to do—never before have you ignored me.

"WHY YOU?!" The scream is raw, cracking in your throat, but your green eyes won't look away from Gil, from the quiet, dark smile on his bloodied lips. "WHY THE HELL WOULD HE GIVE YOU…YOU—" You choke on the words, scratching at my wrists to get to Gil again.

"Jealous?" Gil says to you as he stares at me, contempt and hatred and irony burning bright as flame inside him.

"Why would he give everything to you?! Why would he make you—?!" And you tear free of my slackening hold, tightening your hands around his caramel throat and pounding his head back into the stone table, again, again. "YOU DON'T DESERVE IT!"

"Garfakcy, don't!" I shove you away from Gil, confusion and rage making my movement rough—too rough. I knew the moment I'd touched you that there had been too much force behind the gesture, too much demonic strength.

You slam down onto the marble floor with a crack like shattering bone, and for an infinite second, lie motionless.

And in that moment, I know I've broken you more than anyone ever has.

Then you are shuddering, curling in yourself, fragile shoulders trembling, black and gold strands of hair ghosting across the pure white of the floor. There is a tumultuous silence on us now that even my heartbeat refuses to break.

Shaking, delicate arms push you up from the tiles unsteadily, and never—never before have you seemed so small.

"Why…Why?" you mumble, and then nothing else.

When at last you lift green eyes to look at me, they are clouded with pearline tears, scarring trails down your cheeks. Your gaze is wavering, young, numb with unbearable betrayal.

And then you are gone, and Gil slumps back against the stone table, golden eye half-lidded, bloodied lips half caught in a smile.

He laughs once in the dim tide of silence, a final blow to cut my heart from my chest.

"Master Kharl?"

"I'm sorry… Garfakcy." It was barely above a whisper but I knew you heard it; silver-ash eyes narrowed slightly in confusion.

"Huh?" Your translucent form paused in running for a moment to focus more on me.

"It's… all right now." And then… "Let Rath tear Gil apart. Everything will be fine then." For a moment, I looked away, and even I did not understand why I could not meet your eyes. "Come home, Garfakcy."

"Yes Master Kharl." Your image died in a flicker of ash.

-)o(o)o(-

Experiment 8918-K: "Replica"

Recovered Memory Feather 13

(Handle with care)

I knew the orders, and I disregarded them. But you know, I think Kharl expected me to ignore them all along. I think the Star Princess expected it, and I know Garfakcy saw it coming. Sinistra slid bodily from the darkness to stand in the barren hollow beside me

Rath is coming… Her voice was a decadent purr in my mind. I turned to watch the sky. The full, red moon seemed impossibly close, misty as the first traces of thick, black clouds neared it. The light was harsh, almost too bright for night, and it threw the trees around us into even darker shadow, painting the wood pitch black. The air was chilling quickly, and when I exhaled softly, I could almost see my breath.

Then the crunch of footsteps sounded from the trees behind us, and I turned my head to catch Garfakcy's green gaze in the corner of my eye. His smile was a little cold, all-knowing, and he leaned back against a tree in mockery of nonchalance. So he'd planned to follow me to this moment all along—I wondered what he was expecting of the outcome.

And then, in a whisper of black and crimson and death and light, he was among us. I watched the rise and fall of his chest, and then the hitch of his breath as garnet eyes met my own lilac.

The world stops turning...

Ash, dark and heavy, stilled the air between us. And suddenly there was nothing but him, nothing but the flare of a soul in the endless crash of blood and something more. The beating of his heart became my clock—each second a new eternity.

Between us lie a million unspoken words, mine and his and a thousand other voices. But inside me, there was only one repeating, repeating message. Could not say it, could not force myself to move, could not think beyond that all-encompassing, shattering, impossible feeling.

I love you. Infinite love.

"Hello Rath." Something was broken then between us.

"Alchemist…" Wariness, old hatred, quiet fear settled in the boy's voice that carried on the still air, as if whispered from beside me. It all carried: this madness, half an embrace and half a battle. "Kharl."

I'm going to die—strange to think it, stranger that I did not care. To die for Rath, with Rath, by Rath's hand, is a greater gift than Kharl could ever give me.

"It's been a long time," I smiled.

He came closer, smelling of blood and tragedy and the last vestiges of a dying flame.

"We haven't spoken since the Snowy Mountains… you haven't forgotten me already, have you Rath?" I chuckled, partly from the irony of my pretending to be Kharl and partly from the thought that he could ever forget.

He shivered, tried to hide the gesture—but you can't hide from me Rath—taking one step closer and looking like he wanted to back away again.

"But... that beast…" There was something childish about his voice, and he looked between Sinistra and I as if unsure who to ask for an explanation.

Lord Kharl was not wrong, Shinisu's amethyst eyes narrowed in contemplation. Rath was cut more deeply by Crewger's death than he will admit.

"This is the replacement I created for the Left Bird you stole from me. I call her the Left Beast, Sinistra," I said to Rath. "Do you like it? The form probably brings back memories for you, doesn't it?"

"Is that supposed to be funny?" For the first time since he had said Kharl's name, a hard look of anger flashed over his face, as if I had cut him with a grievous insult.

"Not at all. Consider her homage to those I have deepest respect for… Rath Illuser." Perhaps my smile was a little devious, a little pointed. Rath's face darkened again, a glimmer of self-contempt, and when he spoke, he hardly looked at me.

"You're… a freak." There was a quiet, building venom behind the comment that worried me more than outright rejection would have. Something in the muttered desperation made me still again, took the words I had wanted to say from my mouth. I straightened from where I had bent to stroke Sinistra, turning a harder lilac stare on his closed face.

"You're still lying to yourself. Face it—you are a demon." I had not meant my voice to be so cold, but I could not change it. "Stop pretending to be a member of the Dragon Tribe."

"You're wrong! I belong—" He blanched, red eyes wide in a terror that had nothing to do with me. Some tiny note of triumph rung inside me, but I found myself unwilling to smile.

"…To the Dragon Tribe? I knew you were confused, but I never thought you clueless. You've never fit in with them. Look at you: you suffer every day you wear that silly uniform."

He looked away, seeming suddenly smaller and very alone. But the moment I made to insult his dragon, that softer expression melted into rage that tightened all along his body—rage that only grew as I filled his head with lies about Gil. I meant to cloud his judgment, distract him as I laid the basis for a memory spell, a precious piece of my power that would surely awaken Ruin, remind him of all…

"Do you understand things better now, Rath?" I reached to brush a gloved hand across his bloody cheek. Both of us seemed equally amazed when he did not pull away. In a silent instant, the spell spilled between our touch and filled him. "You are a demon," I pressed, reaching for the memories Lykouleon had buried so very deeply.

"You belong with me."

For a long moment of silence, I was sure I had succeeded, had gone farther than Kharl had willed me to, had done the very thing he had been afraid to do.

And then: "No," Rath murmured.

I knew in an instant I had failed, had only added injury to insult and had perhaps made things worse.

"I do not suffer because of the Dragon Lord or the Dragon Tribe. You are the one who made me suffer." A dangerous flare of ki was the only warning before Rath surged forward, and a sudden coldness poured inside me, as if all my blood had turned to ice.

Steel, the frigid steel of the Light Dragon Sword, pressed through my flesh, already red with blood that must be—was—mine. But for a moment, I could not even feel the blade. All there was was Rath's face: open, angry, shadowed with fear. The stunning red of his irises filled my vision; vibrant, vibrant death with centers of black abyss. Precious, beautiful.

The metallic taste of blood was in my mouth before I knew that I was dying, and resignation crossed my lips as a scarlet-stained smile.

"Such a shame. Those weren't the memories I wanted you to recall." My legs gave out beneath me, and I caught the blood black fabric of his clothes in my fist, the only thing keeping me from slipping away entirely.

"Please, Rath..." my voice was a straining whisper, "tell me… why do you side with the Dragon Tribe?"

He was kneeling beside me then, knees buried in my side in a way that would have been painful if so much other pain was not already welling through me.

"I… never meant to." And his voice was quiet, pressing, not his own.

For the barest of seconds, he was Ruin, beside a father he should have loved more than all the world, a father who loved him unconditionally. It was strange and wonderful and terrifying to be Kharl for him in that moment—when the world started turning again beneath us and our attentions were locked on one another so completely that even the black, heavy clouds, even the air we were barely breathing meant nothing. For a moment I was really, truly Kharl, and he was someone so much more innocent, so much more perfect.

It was a death and a love both infinitely sweet; a shared last breath, a flame-warmed descent into darkness.

The snow began to fall.

-)o(o)o(-

So stand on the edge with me
Hold back your fear and see
Nothing is real 'til it's gone

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Author's Notes: OMG! IT'S OVER! Another chapter done! Thank the gods… I thought I was going to die writing this, seriously. I just… completely lost motivation. First there were all my other fanfiction getting in the way, then I switched my obsession over to another fandom, and then Dragon Knights ended… I'm just so glad this one is done, because the next chapter is something I have been looking forward to writing for FOREVER. Kharl meets Lykouleon!! And some very annoying Dragon Fighters, as well… oh, and can't forget Alfeegi…

I made my apologies for this chapter at the top, so I won't do that again… Other than that, I'm not sure what to say about this chapter. It didn't end where I thought it would, but I decided that extra bit with the real Kharl and Garfakcy just wasn't necessary. I'll probably make allusion to that scene next chapter, just to get the few parts I actually wanted from it.

Review Responses:
Leeayre: Wow… that review just… scrolls and scrolls on my monitor. I get this feeling I replied to it already… I hope I did at least, because it could take pages to get back to everything you mentioned. Anyway, I'm really glad you like the way I decided to write Sinistra. Looking back, I'm pleased with the way she turned out too. I wish I was her, getting to cuddle up to Kharl all the time… I bet she could even sleep in his bed if she wanted to… Darn, I just made myself jealous. XD I want to write something featuring her as the main character. Maybe I'll do a Fallacy chapter: A Day in the Life of Sinistra. In which Kharl and Garfakcy are thoroughly used for their opposable thumbs. Hee hee, well, I hope you didn't TOTALLY hate this chapter… Please don't burn me to a crisp. I think I'll go crawl under a rock now…

Random Irony: Lookie, I updated! The delays everywhere else weren't just because I was being lazy… no really! I know, Mineko Ohkami's names are so interesting. For example, did you know that Gil and Laamgarnas are probably Elvish? And Avis Rara is Latin for "an odd bird"? And Tetheus is probably Greek? I love how much thought she put into a names. As far I as know, there is nothing in either version that says Sinistra is a girl. In the Japanese version, pronouns are left out—there's no "she", "he" or even "it". So the English version didn't have any clues to gender, and just picked "it". I decided to make her a girl based on her name. "Sinistra" is a feminine noun in Italian. I did make a mistake with that sentence "quite". I need to go back and read my chapters before I post them! (Sweat)

Firefly12: Thanks for the review! Hee hee, I feel bad for Garfakcy too. I do adore him so… I abused him in this chapter! (clings) Poor, poor baby! I hope you didn't totally hate this chapter or anything… (hides)

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