I don't own Star Ocean, this is a fanfiction.
I know I should be happy, I got recognized for doing a good job, I saved the lives of my village and made my mother proud. I should be happy about having Millie and Dorn fight by my side, I should be happy that the people of the village trust me they way they do, and I should be happy seeing the smiles on the faces of the children of my village.
I know this, and I know that I should accept this. Deep down inside me however I can't help but think I could do more, that focusing on just my village I am abandoning much more people to suffer just I let myself dwell in my comfort zone.
There was something in me that was screaming for me to think bigger, to no longer be satisfied with saving one village, but to think of higher goals, to be able to look at Evil in the eye and laugh my head off at how unfazed I am.
I got dressed and walked over to my mother, she was apparently cooking something for later, but she seemed to be having a hard time with a particularly hard vegetable. I took the vegetables from the table and began cutting them up, and doing what she was having a hard time to do. That is when she noticed me.
"Roddick, did you sleep well? What are you doing son? You need to go and report to the defense force's office." I knew that mom just was being considerate but I was not the type to leave when my mother was having a hard time if I could help I would.
"Not a chance mother, you didn't sleep well last night. You must still be tried, now don't you worry I will have these veggies cut, diced and ready for what you are cooking in no time. No way I would not help my mother."
She was smiling as I kept on doing the prep work for what she planned to cook. I guess this was the day of the meeting the village mothers got together to discuss cooking recipes. It was a pretty important day for them since they would discuss everything from food preparation to nutritional balance.
"Ok, mom I am done with the veggies. You can take it from here. I am off to my work, but next time mom does tell me when you need help, I don't want you to get hurt unnecessarily." I left and I heard my mother laugh as I walked out the front door. I walked through the village and every time I saw a villager I saw him or her smile as they looked at me.
Millie and Dorn were arguing again, and again they were doing it right in front of the gate that leads to the defense forces office. I still don't see why Dorn is so interested in my cousin. I guess he is just into a woman that tries to control everything he does. Millie may not be the most disciplined symbologist, but she sure wanted things done her way.
As I walked up to them I saw something that didn't seem quite right, the office window. You could always see the members of the Defense Force through the window, but for some odd reason, they were not as many as usual. Something was going on and it must be bad if the number of members was any indication.
"Morning, Millie, Dorn, now if you two will excuse me I need to ask something to our esteemed leader. Don't mind me, keep doing what you are doing, this will not take long." I walked into the office and that was when the leader of our defense forces saw me. He was a little confused if the look on his face told me anything.
"Roddick, didn't I tell you to take the weekend off? It's Sunday you know. You still have today off."
I walked towards his desk and saw the way the office looked, it looked like someone had been spending all night trying to solve a problem, and not having any luck solving it.
"Look, old man, you can't expect me to sit around when something bad is happening. I can tell that many of our members are either sick or incapacitated. So save us some time and tell us what is going on. I walked over to Millie's place and notice her father was also nowhere to be seen. It looks like he been gone for a whole day."
He laughed and I could tell this was not a happy laughter, it was the laughter of someone who was so unhappy and frustrated that he couldn't help but to laugh at his own despair. "Can't keep anything from you now can I Roddick. You are right, there is a strange disease spreading in the village up north, and we haven't heard a word from our healer. Things are indeed bad, which is why I asked you to take the weekend off."
"I asked you to take the weekend off because several members are already infected, and we needed to quarantine them to stop the spread of the illness to other members. Out of the five hundred members, we only have twenty left who are not ill. We don't know what we can do to stop the illness, and our best healer has not found a way to cure it."
Millie must have come into the office during our little talk, how in the world did she sneak without us hearing her I will never be able to figure it out, but she did say something that caught us by surprise, "Why don't we go and find that herb on the top of the nearby mountain. That thing was supposed to be a miracle cure isn't it?"
Our leader finally put his foot down, "Look you have today off and therefore you are not going to go on a recon mission for the defense force until you are back on active duty. Look, guys, I am sure our healer will figure this out by the time your time off ends. He is the best healer this side of the continent. Come on Millie, have a little faith in your dad's abilities."
We reluctantly decided to listen to our leader and I did the only thing I could do. Do odd jobs around the village and help my mother. I went to sleep and I felt so frustrated that I didn't even have dinner. I had a horrible nightmare that everyone in the entire village turned into stone statues. A black hand came out of nowhere and began taking the statues up in the air and smashing them to pieces till they were nothing more than a huge pile of bricks.
I woke up the next morning covered in sweat and shivering like I been caught in a snow storm. I knew that today was a day that I could go back to work, and so I jumped off my bed, got dressed, kissed my mother on the cheek and went running out the front door. I needed to know if there was any news on a possible cure to the plague.
As soon as I reach out the front door I saw Millie and Dorn looking up in the air, a carrier pigeon was coming to deliver a piece of mail, but there was something wrong with that pigeon. It looked weak and wobbly as it landed on Dorn's shoulder and he took the letter off the bird.
He began reading the letter and his face turned pale. "Not good, the plague is impossible to cure, the village has been quarantined and Millie your father said that he caught the disease and will not be able to make it. This sickness is spread by touch, and it takes only a few hours to incubate, the disease starts petrifying the body's internal organs a day after infection. The sick become a solid stone statue in just a couple of days."
That is when Millie looked at us and then turned around and went running towards the village exit. We both knew what she was going to do, and where she was going. We had to at least catch her before she ended up doing something stupid!
Dorn and I went fought off the weak monsters on the way and we were trying hard not to fall behind as we followed Millie, I didn't know Millie could run this fast.
Sure enough, as we got to the village that was just north of ours, at the foot of a large mountain, we knew where she would head and so we kept following her, she must have been too distracted or frantic since she didn't even seem to notice us.
As we got into the house that Millie's father was using while he stayed to study the illness, Millie tried to run towards her father, I had to act fast and launch myself against her and caught her in my arms. "Let go of me Roddick, I have to be with daddy. There must be something I can do to help my daddy! I told you, Roddick, let go of me I swear I will hurt you if you don't."
My uncle smiled at me and nodded his head, "Thank you, Roddick, had you not done that my foolish daughter would have been infected too. Thank you for saving my impulsive daughter. Please, Roddick, take her back to the village and tell your leader what I said in that letter. People need to avoid this village or touching anything that came from it."
As I saw she understood she fell on the ground, "What kind of a world we live in when I can't even offer comfort or care to my own father when he is sick." Millie broke down in tears and I did my best to make my cousin feel better.
In the end, we did what my uncle told me to do, we told the leader what the disease caused and how to avoid getting infected. I was just about to go to sleep when I heard Millie screaming my name over and over again, well at least things are boring.
"Next time I make a wish I should really keep my trap shut. What could possibly be wrong for Millie to scream my name like that." I went and got dressed and began walking towards the front door, my mom was half awake and as she came out of her bedroom door. "Don't worry mom, I will see what is wrong with her. Go back to sleep, you must be dead tired after all the things you did around here."
I helped cover mom as she went back to sleep and went out of my house. "Roddick what is your major problem! Dorn is in pain and you are taking your sweet time in coming out!" We both rushed to find Dorn looking just fine, well he was sweating a little bit, but considering how much running we did today it wouldn't be that strange.
"Roddick finally thanks for coming, buddy! Millie was trying to sneak out of the village and go and find that herb that grows on the top of Mount Xerox. I guess my little act got her to get you to come out and help me with that stubborn girlfriend of mine. Come on buddy, help me out. If we don't go with her to get that herb she is liable to try and sneak out on her own."
I looked at Millie who was scratching the back of her head, and I knew my friend was not kidding. "Millie you should be ashamed of yourself. We are family if you needed to help you should come to me. We are also members of the same squadron in the defense force. I could have you face a court martial for insubordination you know!"
Dorn was laughing as I said that, "Oh, Come now Captain, you know how she is. She is such a daddy's girl it's almost sad. Let's not waste any more time and let us get that herb."
The mountain had a large path carved on it and it was the favorite spot for one particularly nasty creature. The fellworm was one creature that loved to lay their eggs on the bodies of their victims. The eggs hatched and the creature's young would steal their nutritional needs from the bodies of the victim.
As we fought through the horde of fellworms I knew that we needed to get rid of the eggs that these things planted on us. "Ok, we been fighting these things for a while, check yourselves for eggs. You don't want them on you when they hatch."
We began to look except I saw Dorn having a hard time doing so, Millie being his girlfriend she decided to try and help him out, I thought it was a nice gesture until Dorn jumped away from her screaming for her not to touch him. That made me suspicious about the real reason we were getting this supposed miracle herb.
"Ok, Dorn time to fess up. I know that we aren't getting this herb just to help my uncle. So tell me what is the real deal here? Why did you feel the need to help Millie get this herb?" Dorn looked at us as his ears gotten flat on his head, his tail almost was recoiled. This was a clear sign of regret.
"I am not lying when I said that I wanted to help your uncle Roddick, it's just that I am also infected. I must have gotten infected when that carrier pigeon touched me. I only been infected for a day, so I should be fine if we get that herb, and if we test it out on me it will be less stress on you and Millie. Sorry, I kept that hidden but I didn't want you two to worry about me."