Okay Well sorry about how late it seems but oh well. On we go.


Chapter nine

I could tell that Emil was slightly disturbed at the way things had changed around here, but even though it bothered him he didn't say anything. We finally made it to the pub, after I sent Luke away, where Marta was supposedly at. After the blood purge the pub was reduced to nothing but the very basic frame of the building but now it was just a tiny little shack looking place. I pushed open the door and let Emil go in before me; I waved to a friend in the corner.

"Look, Marta is right there, I'm going to talk to that guy for a few minutes okay. When you guys get ready to leave I want you to come tell me. I'm going to start traveling with you." He nodded before walking off to talk to Marta.

I turned back and sauntered over to Michas. He was a local mercenary as I was; and also like me he had lost important people to the desians back before the regeneration. His hair was long and black, but you could always see some of it knotted up in the back. On his right cheek he carried the scars of his childhood when he was almost taken by desians to the ranch. He had blue eyes, and he was never without a dragon emblem necklace that was the only thing he had left from his brother. His armor that he wore day and night was a special crafted dragon plate with a neck guard, heavy gloves, thigh guards, and a heavy brace to match. His only weapon is his war glaive which I could see sitting on the ground next to him.

"What's going on?" He asked when I was close enough to hear him so that he wouldn't have to speak loudly.

"Nothing, just met up again with those kids that I told you about from Luin." I noticed a bag on the floor and a piece of paper in front of him. "New assignment?"

He nodded in confirmation. "Just got it, all the way in Tethe' alla. Man I wanted a different one but I really need the money from this. Some fancy noble wants me to guard him while he travels around with his sister."

I felt kind of bad; that was a job that had been offered to me a couple of days before and I regretted taking it now. Michas hated Tethe'allan people because of their mistreatment of us Sylvaranti and the half-elves.

"Sorry, how long is it this time? The one I had lasted almost a year."

"God, don't say that. That just makes it worse. This one's almost a year and it freaking sucks." I patted his hand.

"Ilex," I turned to look at Emil, "we're ready to go."

"Okay." I gave Michas a quick hug. "I hope you do okay, and don't worry about what anyone says over there. Just tell them that if they don't like you just to remember who's keeping them alive."

He laughed evilly as Emil, Marta, and I walked out of the bar.

"Who was that guy Ilex?" Marta asked trying to catch another glimpse of him through the window.

"Just an old friend of mine, we grew up together." I said no more on the subject. We stopped a couple of feet away from the pub door.

"By the way, what's the plan now?"

"We learned that the harbor wasn't running."

"Yeah, the currents are too strong for any of the ships to sail. When they started the ships still tried going out and we lost a ship and her 46 crew and 60 passengers."

"That's awful." Emil said.

"Anyway, we were going to ask the Mrs. General Dorr if she could do anything about it."

"Okay, well that's one of the only buildings that remained intact and it suffered very little damage so it's still in the same place." I nudged them back towards the plaza.

"We'll that's good, at least something survived. Although I'm really surprised, with all that fire that was everywhere it's hard to believe that it didn't catch fire like everything else." Marta said in relief.

"It can't catch on fire. It's completely made out of brick, a lot of money was spent on the making of that building and it was made to last."

"You know, there was something that I never understood. What happened to the Governor General?" Marta turned towards me when I didn't answer.

My eyes stayed glued to the ground. I knew exactly what had happened to the governor general because I had been right there when Kilia had brutally stabbed the governor in the back while wearing the face of his beloved daughter. We had never told anyone other then Neil and Clara what had happened to him, and I wasn't to keen on divulging information that didn't need to be known.

I looked up and stared her straight in the eyes. "Nothing of much interest, the only thing you need to know is that he has passed on and that's all."

She seemed a little startled about my answer but she didn't ask anymore questions, for which I was glad of. Luke ran over to me when we entered the plaza and said that since I was going to be leaving again soon he wanted to spend as much time with me as possible. I picked him up and sat him on my shoulders before we entered the office building.

Clara was standing in the middle of the big oval office discussing something with Neil who was, as usual, trying to do something to help reconstruction. They turned to look at all of us when they heard the big oak doors creak open. Neil waved at me before rolling up his blueprint for a new building design and walked through the doors to the back office. Clara, although being a monster the first time I met her, was a very beautiful woman with a charming personality and an optimistic view of the world despite losing both her husband and daughter to the desians.

After nodding hello to me she turned to look at Emil and Marta. She seemed to recognize Marta right away. "Oh, you're Marta Lualdi aren't you?" She asked.

"It's been a long time, Mrs. Governor-general." I leaned over to whisper in Clara's ear.

"Why don't people call you Mrs. Dorr? Wouldn't that be so much easier?" She shook with laughter and Emil and Marta looked a little confused.

"Yes, since the blood purge." The air in the room took on an angst feeling at those words. We stayed silent for a moment in respect for the dead.

Finally Marta broke the silence. "I'm sorry with all the trouble with my father back then."

"You have nothing to apologize for, but tell me, what brought you here today?"

"I'd like to take a ship out of the harbor; we're trying to get to Izoold."

She looked at Emil and then at me and I nodded in understanding.

"Oh right. Emil was born here as well, do you know him."

"Emil, Emil Castagnier is it; Reysol's son?" Clara looked hard at him.

"Yes that's right."

Marta seemed to notice the peculiar expression on Clara's face. "Is something the matter?"

"Oh my, they say eye sight is the first thing to go. I hardly recognized you, I'm sorry Emil."

"Not at all."

Clara turned back to Marta. "Regarding the ship, there is nothing I can do with the ocean in its current state, but…"

"Is there some other way?" Marta asked putting a hand on her hip.

"Yes, Emil perhaps you remember Thomas, the fisherman that lived next to you."

"Thomas the fisherman." I could hear him mumbling under his breath, trying to remember a person that he had never met.

"He told me that he'd figured out the source of the storms. He set out for the Dynasty Ruins up in the Kamisira Mountains, but no one's heard from him since. Perhaps if you found Thomas…"

"Oh yeah, I remember Michas telling me about that. We were going to join that rescue party that was going to be sent up there." I knew Thomas personally, and even though he was a pretty stout man, he was in no way no fashion a warrior.

"So basically we should go to the Kamisira Mountains to look for Thomas?"

"Oh no, the Kamisira Mountains are far too dangerous. We're sending out a search party to look for him. You can wait here until they return."

"I'll go ahead and go with them. I've been in that place enough to know my way fairly well around."

"What should we do? If we stay here it's just a matter of time until Alice finds us."

I hadn't really thought about that. "Clara, if I may say so, I think they are more then capable of handling the mountains. Besides I'm going with them, so it won't be too dangerous."

Marta agreed and even though Emil didn't really want to even he accepted to go.

"I can see that you've made up your mind. I won't try and stop you but please do be careful." Clara said more to me then anyone else. I nodded and hid a smile as we left the building.

I drew my sword as Emil and Marta remained unaware of the danger that came from above. Whether they realized it or not Richter and his amazing butt pouch had jumped down from the roof above with his weapons drawn. I shoved Emil and Marta out of the way and managed to stop the sword before it could do any damage, but because of the angle I was standing the axe clipped my side and left a decent sized laceration.

"So you're protecting her?" He asked Emil who had also drawn his sword and had it directed at Richter.

I tried holding a hand over the cut to apply pressure and stop the bleeding but pulled my hand back when it got singed; I could feel the micro-fire eating away at the threads of my shirt.

"Goddamn you, you son of a bitch! This was my favorite shirt, you shit head!" I stared at him angrily and as usual he wasn't even paying attention to me. "Leave it to you to have light fire elemental weapons."

That's when he stared at me in surprise. "You know what they are?"

"Hell yes, an axe and sword by the names of Mani and Sol. You totally pawned those from some half-elves in Exire."

"I made a pact." Emil started to say in relation to Richter's previous question. "A pact to borrow Ratatosk's power, so that I could protect Marta; so I'm not going to let anyone hurt Marta ever again. Not even you."

"You actually made a pact with Ratatosk?! You fool!"

"Ilex!" I froze solid at that voice. I turned very slowly to see my sister running as well as she could towards me. Normally Ganesha was an excellent runner, but being about nine months pregnant and her trying to run just didn't work, so technically she was in some sort of funky waddle walk. As she kept coming towards me I saw a dagger headed straight for Richter. He noticed it as well and lifted his sword to deflect it. When is got stuck in the ground I felt my eyes grow wide and a cold sweat broke out on my forehead.

Of course he's here; he just has to go where ever she goes. I held out my hands for her to take. "Come on give me your hands."

"Why?" She asked a little skeptical.

"Because I don't really think that it's a good idea for me to see him right now, because if I do I'm not to be held responsible for my actions." I sighed in frustration when I noticed that he was already here. Oh that idiot chosen! I tightened my grip on my sword.

"Sorry about that, it looks like my hand just slipped a bit." He started walking forwards and grabbed his weapon. Oh yeah, it was almost time.

"Wait a minute, aren't you…" I could tell that Richter recognized him as the chosen. Good, now maybe he would side with me when I killed the weasel.

"Well hello, I don't know who you are, and normally I could care less about some guy knowing who I am. But one thing is for certain; you need to learn the proper way to treat a true lady."

That was when I lost it. I broke away from Ganesha, who let out a cry, and charged towards that imbecile of a she-man. I cut in between Marta and him where he was holding her close to him.

"Whoa what the crap are you doing Ilex?!" he asked as I stood ready, sword drawn and the blood dripping.

"You haven't changed at all. I thought maybe because you asked her to marry you that you had changed, but I see now that I was wrong to believe that." I could feel three confused stares, and two angry ones on my back, and face. "So you wanted a one night thing and then you find out she was pregnant so you decided that you should marry her so that you don't make yourself look even worse. You're not that important anymore, but you're still trying to retain your fame, you little man whore."

"Why don't you go sling yourself off of the Tethe' allan bridge you little bitch."

"Zelos!" Ganesha scolded him from where she stood. "Don't talk to her that way."

"Why not, she treats me like I'm dirt. I think I deserve a little bad mouthing." He replied still staring at me coldly.

"You might as well be dirt for all I care. What kind of man are you. You ignored her from the very day you met her, all because she is a half-elf." I could see Ganesha flinch and if I'm not mistaken, Richter twitched a little. "Now look. So back then being a half-elf was awful, now it's meh."

"Oh look whose talking. Let me see, who was that hated the desians more then anyone?" He mocked me, but I refused to be defeated. I held my head high and looked him straight in the face.

"I never had a problem with the desians until they took everyone that ever meant anything to me away." I knew what I was about to say would be cruel, but he needed to hear it. "What about you? Remember seeing you mom that day; lying on the ground dying because of your sister's mother. You remember how she told you that you were the biggest mistake of her life."

With each word I said I could see that he grew more and more enraged. He made to attack my bad side. I was surprised when Richter stepped in the way, ready to defend me.

"Stop it! Just stop, please!" We all looked over to Ganesha on the ground weeping while she rubbed her belly. Zelos and I both started towards her but I shoved him to the ground using my hip and made it too her first. I grabbed her into a hug and let her cry into my shirt, but I pulled back when I remembered that the shirt was still burning. I pulled it up over my head and threw it to the ground and let her resume her sobbing. I smiled sheepishly when they all looked at me like I was crazy.

Underneath my shirts I always word a half shirt that was made very similar to the shirt itself. My shirts were all laced tops, meaning that they were made mostly like a regular shirt except in front the two sides of the shirt is held together with loose lace.

"What, blame that guy, he was the one that caught it on fire in the first place." I pointed childishly towards Richter who stared at me evilly.

"Ah….Zelos, you know I love you right. Then be a good boy and protect your sister-in-law from the man that wants to rape her." I made my eyes water and looked worriedly at Richter who was now making his way towards me. I ran and hid behind Zelos and was glad that everyone was playing along. Ganesha had stopped crying and she was trying now not to laugh. "No, protect the innocence. He's not a virgin anymore, but he likes it anal." I pointed to the red head in front of me.

Before Zelos could turn around to cuff me I grabbed him by the hair and threatened him with a dagger. "You bitch!" He yelled.

"Say that again. I dare you." I knew that he wouldn't say it again. Not why I had the dagger poised to where if he moved it would cut off all his hair. Before I could react Richter was standing directly in front of me. He smirked and grabbed me about the waist and pulled me to where we were touching clothes to clothes.

Before I could even think to what he was doing his lips had already come down on mine and I lost to fight him. I fell limp, but I could feel the warmth that spread through me. It was lust right, just lust. Finally when he stopped and I could barely hear anything for the left over buzz he moved his lips to my ear. "Alice is planning something. You and Emil should be careful." He slapped me hard on the ass then started walking away.

"You jerk, how dare you do that without my permission!" I screamed at him. Trying to force down the heat of my humiliation, and here I thought he did it because he wanted too.

I could hear him chuckling as he called back. "I thought you should be repaid for what you did in the cave."

I went cold inside. He remembered that. I could just cry.


Wow, did anyone else think that got a bit dramatic in the middle. But over all I think this is my favorite chapter (wink wink). I would like some feedback. Do you guys think that that kissing scene was okay, it was kind of an out of the blue idea for me. Just so you know though they are no where near getting together. Richter even gives you the reason for why, but I like it, even though Ilex does feel abit used now. Please leave some comments and tell me what you think. I was also wondering what you guys would think about maybe the baby being born in the next chapter, I would like that to happen but I want to know what you guys think about it first. So please tell me what you think about that idea in the your comment. Thank you.