Chapter Four. Please tell me what you think, folks! - Tony

Chapter 4: A Beautiful Creature

He sat in the dark and watched the flickering light of his dying candle dance on her face as she slept. She didn't turn in the thick blankets he'd taken from the house, and she slept soundlessly, the thick paths on her cheeks where tears had been flowing steadily now dry like the earth she lay on. Her mouth which was fenced by a small, pretty set of lips hung open. He looked at the beauty in front of him until his eyes threatened of tears and he then turned to his left and spat in the dirt and adjusted her blankets so she would be more comfortable. After this he stood and ventured into the night once more, leaving her concealed in the cave like the trophy of some mythical beast.

He retraced the steep path he had led the weeping girl across when it had still been day, with his hand cupped over her face and her tears trickling down his hand. He raised his head and propped up his hat and in the distance he could see two roadrats with blades, one sawing into the flesh under Braska's thick mane of hair, both cackling maniacally as if death were some grand joke too few could truly appreciate. Behind them the shed Braska's wife must have been running for as she was killed was ablaze. As he came upon them the glow of a lantern guided his way, and the crying girl's haunting beauty compelled him towards his targets with blinding rage. The first who was now dragging the dead lady by the ankles Tidus shot in the temple, resulting in a vomit of blood and brains, staining the ground dark with gore. The second man was shot in the throat, and as the roadrat dropped his stained blade into the sand he gave a gurgled cry and his neck erupted in a messy geyser of crimson. Tidus then retrieved the fallen weapon, took up the still screaming thief by the hair and scalped him alive with his own knife. Then he dropped the limp body, went over to the dead man's comrade and scalped him as well.

He breathed for a minute and sighed the devil out of him, and threw the hairy slabs of flesh to the ground. There was silence for a few moments now, as the gunsmoke and pink mist gradually retreated from the air. He cleaned the knife on the shirt of the first victim and pocketed it in his bag, then preceded to take each of the mutilated corpses by the lapels with his left hand, frisking them the while with his right. On the first body he found a gold plated pistol and forty-two dollars in bills, and on the second he found nothing but a cheap blade hosted by rotting wood. He dragged the two fresh cadavers to the shed and tossed them into the flaming wreckage and he stood and watched for a moment as bloody flesh seared and bubbled and melted. He left the rotting, violated carcasses of Braska and his wife on the plain for he didn't feel he had the right to move them, and he turned around and began his trek back towards the cave.

I reckon they'll be the last visitors.

He awoke in the cave with a bit of a start and looked around himself with confusion until his memory caught up with his eyes. The girl was still asleep to the far left, her position unchanged. He exhaled and shifted and reached for his canteen, and as he did so she shot up faster than he had and he froze mid reach and turned his head to look at her. She looked around herself and Tidus wondered if she was going to start crying again, but it seemed as though she was through.

"How are you doing?" He asked her, trying hard to keep his rough voice gentle.

"Better, maybe."

"Really?"

"Maybe."

"So quickly?"

She propped herself up a bit. "Both of them were pretty mean to me. Hit me a lot. But they were my folks, y'know?"

"It's fine if you need to cry more," Tidus told her. "You got every right to be sad."

"It ain't them dying that really gets me going," The girl said, looking at the floor instead of him. "It's the fact that he came out of nowhere and killed 'em for apparently no reason in particular."

Tidus became determined. "Who? Who was it?"

"Reverend Guado of Besaid."

And then it was though someone had clubbed Tidus over the head with a rock because his face went blank and his eyes went dead as memories of the calm, long haired, quiet priest from his childhood began to pollute his mind. Holding the hands of tiny children, kissing widows on their heads. The girl seemed to take note of his reaction because she asked next if Tidus knew the man she meant and he said yes. He asked her if she wanted to go back to the house and she shook her head and said that she had no reason to.

"Well where do you reckon you're gonna stay? Ain't very comfortable in here." He gestured to the barren, sandy floor of rock around them.

"I think I'll go to Luca."

"Luca?"

"Luca."

"Why?"

"I got relatives up that way."

"Luca's just where I come from."

"Really?"

"Yes mamn."

She nodded, and Tidus tilted his head as he looked at her.

"Do you got a horse?"

"...No. I reckon I could buy one at one of the halfway towns."

"Don't be a fool, girl. You can ride with me."

"I don't know."

"You don't?"

"Well I guess I'd like it. I'd feel safer, if you get my meaning."

"I get yer meanin'. Do you got a name?"

"Yuna."

He'd given her his hand and pulled her to his feet and told her he was going back to the house to see if there was anything he could scavenge and he asked her if that was alright and she said yes. Then he asked her what he should do with the bodies, and he saw tears tugging at her multi-colored eyes that he now saw were of blue and green and he told her not to worry about it. Then he put a hand on her arm reluctantly for a moment and made her a promise without even saying so.

"I'm gonna look after you."

She looked up from the floor and dabbed at her eyes with her small hands and nodded at him, and with that he turned back towards the killing grounds with his bag over one shoulder.

He found an old double-barrel in the house that had no strap and two boxes of ammo that he slipped into the bag, and he then looted cupboards for food and packed in whatever he could find until the bag was so heavy that the strap bore into his shoulder a little, and he walked back outside with the rifle in his fist.

They rode out past the ranch with Yuna grooved into his crotch and she had blushed a little at first and Tidus had drawn his mind to other thinks to keep himself from getting aroused. As they rode past where the bodies lay Yuna had turned to the left and Tidus cupped his hand over her eyes again and he thought he might have felt a single tear.

The out of the foilage and trees and plants and came upon the empty, sprawling tan landscape, and it was then that she began to sweat and she would occasionally wipe her face with her hand and then wipe her hand on the purple leg of her dress, and the white top she wore was also wet and clung to her back and sometimes when Cid went over a stone she would fall back on him and cling to his chest for a moment as well. As they rode sometimes he would ask her if she needed to stop or if she wanted a break, and she would always turn her head so that he could just see the right side of her face that held the green eye and say no and that it was alright, and he would nod and they would ride on when all she really had needed to do was shake her head.

The sun was beginning to duck behind the mountains.

"We should probably stop at night, shouldn't we?"