A.N. "Blah"- Normal speech
'Blah'- Thoughts
Blah>- Radio, comm, ect
"Blah"- Dreams, memories
Star Ocean Till the end of time
Reunion
Proofread by Tristian Amaryllis
Chapter 4: Childhood memories
"Come on Clair, it'll be tons of fun, I promise!" She said, laughing as she ran.
Clair probably could have turned around and gone home right then,
and she wouldn't have noticed, but her friend was far too prim
to do anything like that. Even when she was afraid.
"I don't know about that, Nel." Clair put in from behind her. "This could get us in a lot of trouble."
"But that's what makes it fun. Don't you see?"
Nel turned her head to look back at Clair, never missing a step.
"We'll be in danger. Real danger! Just like our parents!"
"I don't know..."
Finally, Nel had to stop. It was too hard to coax someone when you were outdistancing them
"Oh, come on Clair. Don't be such a worry wart. It's not like anything will really happen."
"You promise we won't get eaten by wild dragons?"
"Cross my heart and hope to die." Nel said. She spoke with complete solemnity,
but it was still hard to restrain herself from rolling her eyes.
Everything with Clair seemed to come down to getting eaten by wild dragons.
That was why she had trouble sleeping at night too.
"Alright, we won't go too far right? And we'll be back by this afternoon?"
"Of course." 'Maybe'. She added mentally.
"Okay, let's go." She said, and took off again, the moment the matter was settled.
"Hey wait up Nel!" Her friend called "Nel!" Now her voice hadthat shrill, whiny edge to it,
like it always did before Clair started going into one of her tantrums.
Oh come on Clair, jeez. It's not like I'm that much faster than you.
Besides, they needed to go quickly, if Clair wanted to be back by her precious little afternoon.
Couldn't she see that?
"Nel!" A voice echoed. "Nel, wake up!"
"Huunh?" Gradually, the crimson-haired warrior opened her eyes, and found herself looking up at the face of
her long-time friend and colleague, Clair. Numbly and independent of her, her mind analyzed the situation.
She had fallen asleep at her desk. And, it seemed, drooled on it rather generously as well.(A.N. Oh come on, we all do it) Clandestinely, she leaned over the table, trying to obscure that from view.
"Have you been up all night again?" Clair asked, handing her friend a cup of strong tea.
"Thanks." Nel said groggily, accepting it and taking a long sip. It tasted awful, but it was good for clearing the head.
"There's a lot of paper work surrounding the celebration, and
I'd like to get most of it done before we head off to Peterny."
"Times up for that, I'm afraid." Her friend smiled. "Her Majesty will be leaving soon, and you need to get ready.
We are on escort duty y'know."
Nel sighed.
"Alright Clair." She said, rising and setting the cup down neatly on top of that spot she had been trying to hide. "Just give me ten minutes and I'll be ready"
After Clair left the room, instead of jumping to get ready as she should have, she slouched back down in the chair and thought about her dream. At the time that had happened, she had been six, and more impulsive and maniacal than she had ever been before or since. She and Clair (the latter who had to be half dragged along) had gone into the Mountains of Barr.
The place was supposed to be crawling with wild dragons, but they had spent the entire day there and not seen one.
Nel had been completely confident in her sense of direction at the time,
but of course, blessed with that magical ineptitude that came with being a child, she had gotten them lost.
It had been getting dark, and finally, when Clair was bawling and Nel herself was getting close to joining her,
they had finally found one of those elusive air dragons, and it had attacked them.
It chased them for what had felt like an eternity, finally cornering them in a tiny dead-end niche in the canyon.
Both of them had thought that they'd had it when Clair's father Adray showed up and dispatched the thing almost casually in favour of glowering over the two of them.
She remembered looking up at him as vividly as if it had been yesterday.
He had been a giant, six feet made entirely of frowning, loudmouthed disapproval,
and to this day Nel had notfigured out how he had found them. Afterwards, they made their way back to Arias in silence where her father was waiting. She received a major tanning from him and hadn't been let out to play with her friends for two weeks.
Shaking those thoughts to the back of her mind for now, Nel picked up her cup,
downed the last of the tea and made her way towards the royal bathhouse to
freshen up. Twenty minutes later, both Nel and Clair were sitting up in the back of a wagon with Tynave and
Farleen sitting up front driving,
They were in front of the royal coach, on their way to Peterny where the Queen would be meeting the king of Airyglyph.
The event had been carefully organized by officials from both Kingdoms for nearly a year, which had involved a few sleepless nights for both parties. As Clair and Farleen went over the arrangements once more,
Nel found herself daydreaming again, thinking of more of her incompetent childhood exploits.
"Come on Dylan, give it back!" Claire begged the older boy as he dangled her favourite toy in front of her
"Aww, does the little girl want her dolly back?" He said maliciously,
and then laughed as his two cronies shoved her down into a puddle of mud.
"Nice one Dil." One of them said.
"Yeah, nice." Said the other.
Neither of them specified exactly what was 'nice', but that was generally how they operated.
They simply complimented Dylan on random things, and he wallowed in it like a hog.
"Hey, you'd better make them give that back Dylan."
The boy looked over his shoulder, and saw a redheadedgirl coming towards him,
a girl even younger than the one they were tormenting, in fact.
A girl who, sadly, had not yet developed her discretionary gene.
"Hey guys, its little Nel!" He said. Nel hadhalf-expected one of his toadies to compliment him on noticing.
"Whatcha gonna do?"
"First I'm going to get Clair's doll back, then I'mb gonna kick your ass." She said stoutly,
and in a matter-of-fact tone.
However, what had happened next hadn't exactly been what she had hoped for,
as roughly five seconds later, she was in the mud puddle with Clair.
"Y'know it's not nice to pick on little girls who can't defend themselves." Someone else said.
"Huh?"
Turning around, the five children noticed a boy with messy black hair,
who looked about a year older than Clair, walking over towards them.
"Who the hell are you?" Dylan asked. "And what makes
you think you can talk big to me?"
"And who are you calling little girls?" Nel added furiously. The boy ignored her.
"I ain't got time for you. Boys, beat him till he can't walk no more."
Dylan's two cronies advanced on the strange boy, but he was both faster and stronger then he looked
and he quickly dealt with the two thugs and moved on to Dylan.
"One more chance to give the girl back her doll andwalk away from this." The boy said, and then his eyes darkened. "Before I hurt you."
"Hah! I'd like to see you try!" Dylan said. And then he charged.
The strange boy was a good fighter, quick and lithe and with inhuman reflexes
(inhuman at least by the reckoning of a young, untrained girl), and he was certainly able to hold his own
but Dylan was tall and wide and strong – not to mention older – and that gave him the bigger advantage.
In less than twenty seconds, he walloped the boy in the face with a meaty fist,
sending him crashing to the ground, and then followed it up with a stiff kick to the gut.
"Well, so much for your hero moment." Dylan said,
bearing over his victim when suddenly Nel crept behind him and dropkicked the back of his leg.
He didn't fall, as she had hoped, but it gave the boy enough time to get up,
grab a nearby tree branch and knock Dylan unconscious with it.
"Yeah, well I try." The boy (who now had a pretty nasty black eye) said as he removed the doll
from Dylan's belt and handed it to Claire,after he helped her from the mud puddle.
"Here." He said before walking off.
"Thank you, sir!" Claire yelled after him, but the boy made no reply.
"NEL!" The scream, Tynave's, came from right beside her, knocking her out of her reverie.
Even so, she had still heard everything; she had long since mastered the
art of putting her body on autopilot – it was sort of a job requirement – and some people
would have been surprised to know how aware she was, even when she was practically asleep.
She snapped into full awareness already moving, and already knowing what the problem was: bandits.
Approaching the royal coach, and not being very quiet about it.
It was nearly nightfall by the time both the wagon and the royal coach
reached Peterny. They pulled into the city streets to the west side of town
towards the 'Front Door Inn'.
After checking in, Nel lay down on the bed
which, after sitting stiffly in the back of a wagon with only the occasional bandit
to break up the journey for three days, felt as though she'd died and gone to
'The Green fields of Apris'.
Right now the Queen was in her private room, eating a meal,
Tynave and Farleen wereout in town,
and Clair (who occupied the other bed in her room) was gone,
presumably off catchingup with a subordinate.
She had no idea where Adray was.
The plan had been for him to meet them here, but he hadn't.
Knowing him however, he was somewhere
sleazy, and most likely causing trouble there.
Deciding not to pass up the opportunity to sleep in a comfortable bed,
Nel closed her eyes. She had almost dropped off when she heard a noise.
Reflexively, she bolted upright and saw a hooded figure standing before her.
"You're as beautiful as ever." The figure said "You'd
better rest now. They're coming"
Nel rubbed her eyes,only to find the figure gone.
Well that was chapter 4, big shout out to Tristian to cos with out his input this story wouldn't exist, please send me your comments so review me, check my profile for my e-mail address if you've got any suggestions. Things will start happening next chapter, promise. Till then, Peace.