A/N: OH NOES!!! I'M HAVING AN ALLERGIC REACTION TO MY SHINIES!!! WHAT SHOULD I DO!?!?
Kioko: Rhea?
Rhea: Yes?
Kioko: Here's what you should do. STOP HANDLING THOUSAND-DEGREE-LEVEL SUNSTONES WITH BEAR HANDS!!!
Rhea: But I'm, ow, a dragon, ow, hot stuff shouldn't, ow, hurt me, ow, ow, ow…
Kioko: You still have a human body, and besides that, I got those from THE SUN! Put them DOWN!!! …NO NOT ON THE COFFEE TABLE!!!
XP
"Who's she—"
"We don't have time, let's go, now!" I hissed, taking Bano's reigns myself and pulling him back around. "Get in the cart." I hissed, and Farah, though still dazed by what was happening, nodded and did so swiftly. The eyes of a few were drawn to us, but I didn't care anymore.
"Kaida, I don't think Alzik's found a boat yet." Keilic told me.
"Whether he has or not, we have to go, now." I told him. "Where is he?"
"Here. And I have, it won't leave until tonight though—" Alzik said, appearing at my shoulder.
"We don't have time, we're leaving now." I said, walking swiftly so that Bano was now trotting.
"What happened?" Asked Keilic.
"I'll explain later, but right now we have to get out of here." I hissed at him. A vision came to me, a hazy one, but I Saw it well enough. I Saw a boat, broken and run down, but it had once held plenty of supplies, and a part of it had been used as a stable. It was three times as big as the one the Prince and I used, but then, we had three times as many people, and a horse. It would work.
The trip out of the city was almost painfully long, it likely only took 10 minutes, but in that time I kept thinking about Zasalamel, and what might happen if he caught us before we could get out.
I couldn't quite explain why but, well, I was no longer afraid of him. No, I was terrified of him. It got to the point where I would probably have screamed like a banshee and run like a lunatic if he popped out at us and went 'Boo!' I needed to get out, I needed to leave…
I scrambled onto the driver's seat with Bano's reins in my hands, and Alzik and Keilic both had to hop on swiftly else risk being left behind as I urged Bano to go as fast as he could and still keep the cart steady, which was, indeed, faster than one might expect from this wonderful, wonderful horse.
I needed the prince. I needed him, I needed him to be my knight in shining armor, to defend me against Zasalamel with his very being. I needed him, I needed him so much it hurt. I was on the verge of panic, of screaming and running for the boat myself, of scrambling to the beach that I knew had to be at least a mile away. Somehow I felt that if I were with him, if I could find him, everything would be alright again. That he could fight away my nightmares once more, that he could save me from Zasalamel, like he saved me from myself.
"Kaida…Kaida let's stop for a minute, let's just take a moment to calm down." Keilic tried.
"No!" I snapped, I was shaking all over, I was breaking down, I couldn't do this, I couldn't talk, I needed to focus on the road ahead. The only thing that was keeping me together was the thought of seeing the Prince again, of throwing myself into his arms and kissing him until my heart burst.
"Kaida what happened?!" Keilic exclaimed.
"I'll tell you, though I'm not sure about everything." Farah said. And I was somehow better able to calm down, listening to her talk. Her voice washed over me, not much of her words broke through, but it was just that she was speaking, and the vibrations of sound that flew through her mouth somehow seemed to sooth me, give me something else to concentrate on as I pushed Bano on harder and harder, all the while murmuring encouragements and praises to him here and there.
Kassima climbed onto the seat in between Alzik and I, and wormed her way into my lap. Alzik took the reins from me, almost having to force them out of my hands, and I held Kassima tightly in my arms.
"Mommy," She murmured softly to me, "If that man comes to scare you again, I'll protect you. Okay?" She said, and I looked down at her in slight surprise. But I remembered that beast, and realized what she was saying.
"Oh, sweetie, no, no I don't want you to—"
"It's okay, Mommy. He doesn't scare me anymore, not really." She said, and I stared at her.
"Who?"
"Ra." She answered, "His name is Ra, and he doesn't scare me anymore. I told him that if he didn't leave me alone, I'd tell you he was bothering me, and you'd get mad. He stopped, mommy, he stopped." She smiled, "And, I think I know why, Mommy. It's because I always had the ability to control him, but I never had the courage to try. I can call him now, and he'll have to do whatever I say, so if I tell him to kill that man, he will." She said.
"Kassima…" I smiled at her, and there were tears of joy in my eyes as I hugged her tightly to my chest, "I'm so happy, I'm so happy for you. You are a very strong girl, you know that? You're other mommy would be so proud of you, just like I am so proud of you." I told her.
"I love you, Mommy. I'll never forget how you took me away from that lady, I'll never forget how you came to save me. I know I'm still a child, but I'm old enough to know that you saved me, mommy, you did, and I want to save you too. If you're scared, I'll protect you!" She told me.
"Oh Kassima…" I murmured, holding her tightly, "I love you so much."
"…No, Kassima's not really her daughter, but Kaida's sort of become her surrogate mother." I heard Aizira murmur to Farah in the back.
We road on through the day and into the night. It was dark, and Kassima was asleep in my arms before we got to the beach, and before I was able to direct Alzik to where the ship was.
"What tha—this is a wreck!" Exclaimed Alzik when we arrived.
"It is now but it didn't use to be." I said, giving Kassima to Aizira.
"So what use is it to us now?" Keilic asked. But instead of replying, I got out of the cart, the others following suit, and walked over to it.
"Even if you stopped time so we could rebuild it, we still don't have the supplies we need for it." Said Farah, "We need food and fresh water at least, enough to get us to Egypt, and there's definitely not enough supplies in their cart for that."
Crap, she was right, I began to pace, trying to think fast, "There's got to be something…we have to leave now!"
"And so we shall." A powerful voice called from a distance, and we all turned to see Sabrielle flying swiftly towards us, and following her were none other than the Order of the All-Seeing Eye.
It was incredible, watching her flying towards us, she seemed to illuminate the darkness on her own, a brilliance that threw everything into much sharper relief without making it hard on the eyes. And the sword in her hand seemed to burn even more brightly as well. She truly was an angel, but what were the cultists doing with her, and what were they all carrying?
Sabrille landed gracefully on the ground before us, "I took the liberty of requesting help from your followers, and they have risen to your aid." She told me, and the cultists came to a stop a few yards behind her, and I could see now what they were carrying. Crates and bags and bottles of food, water, and even extra ropes, tools, and other little things to help us along the way. Several of them also spied the boat and looked ready to help rebuild it.
I felt my breath catch in my throat as I stared around at them all, not knowing what to say, nor how I could possibly thank them for this. Jemal had been killed because I asked him to get rid of Zervan, when I should have done it myself. I slaughtered two of their brothers and took Mychala from them. In all honesty, I thought they would surely be angry with me. But…
"Your followers are even more ready and willing to seek and serve an Empress of compassion and good will than the Empress of judgment and an iron fist that Mychala had shown them." Sabrielle told me.
"Lord-brother Jemal has written down the words you spoke to him, and we shall keep them and spread them throughout the world to all our brother and sister sects!" Called a young woman dressed in leather armor who appeared to have taken Jemal's place as leader.
"All hail the Empress of Time!" Cried many at once.
"I have told them of the situation so that they understand, I have told them that you expect nothing from them, but they are ready to gather the other sects and create for you an army against Zasalamel, who is not only your enemy, but has killed one of their own, Jemal." Sabrielle told me.
"Th-thank you!" I called hoarsely, "Thank you all so much! But be careful! Zasalamel is no mere man, don't throw your lives away!" I told them. I then turned to the boat and raised my hands. The golden Sands of Time came up and converged upon it, lifting it and its pieces into the air, repairing it, making it whole, making it as it once was, at its very best, its very strongest. With the sands I set it into the ocean, and I then took the supplies that were laid out for us by the cultists and sent them into the storage rooms of the small ship in the form of sands. After that, I wasn't sure what to do, but the next moment Sabrielle built a bridge of light that we could cross onto the boat, and though at first it was hard to get Bano to trust it, we were eventually across and I was shouting orders to the others about what to do to get the sails going and have us moving.
I waved to the cultists, all of whom cheered and shouted hails and encouragements to me and also to Sabrielle, who hovered above the ship, becoming our light as we had no torches lit at present.
We sped along the waters with Sabrielle's help, soon out of sight of the land, nimbly avoiding a rocky patch and shooting along with the moon high above us. In fact, Sabrielle got us going so fast that Aizira and Kassima were actually laughing with the thrill of it, and I felt my heart lift and my fear fade. It felt like we were riding in a motor boat rather than a sail boat, and after a while I felt calm enough to go below deck with Farah following me and start making up our sleeping quarters and arranging everything, if only so it'd have a nicer feel to it.
"You really made an impression on them, you know. And it isn't just because you're the Empress of Time." Farah told me, helping me as I made up the straw beds in the small, individual rooms that we had. There were four, enough for two of us to have our own room, which would be Farah and Aizira because Kassima would have no trouble bunking with me. The main room that was entered when coming down the stairs, and on the opposite wall there was the hallway, which had two rooms on each side and the washroom in the very back. Down below this deck was the storage room where we had piles of crates and boxes with our supplies. The biggest thing was making the middle deck comfortable.
"Apparently so." I said, making sure to pack the straw in tightly and make it low to the ground so that if Kassima accidentally fell off she wouldn't have far to go. "Though I think Sabrielle would make a big impression on anyone."
"It isn't just her, you've made an impression on me too. You're so…so different from anyone I've ever met. Remember when we first met? In that dream? You didn't even know me, and yet you went out of your way to save me, I know it was just a dream, but we weren't quite aware of that at the time. I never really got around to thanking you for it. It seems like you've been through some very hard times in the past, and that what you've learned you learned out of necessity, but even through all of that, you're still compassionate and caring. I think you really are the best person to lead these people, or any people for that matter. You would make a great empress over people, and not just time." She told me.
I stared at her for a while, wondering if she was actually serious. Did we know each other well enough for her to make that assessment, or was she like me, gifted, or cursed, with the ability to see into people empathically to an almost supernatural level? But what she said…it stirred something inside of me, or rather, it quieted the stirring, the doubts that had been mounting in the back of my mind about the future, about accepting the roll of being Queen of Babylon one day. And her words…I simply couldn't tell her how grateful I were for them, how much they truly meant.
But she seemed to understand, though my voice was caught in my throat, she smiled, and did something that I don't think I could ever have seen coming, with or without second sight. She hugged me, like a sister, she hugged me. And I hugged her back.
XD
Sabrielle was still moving the ship at incredible speeds, but she was doing it without being seen in the daylight. We no longer needed her to illuminate the deck of the ship, but she still somehow managed to make light enough for us below. She seemed to have become the ship in a way, we could feel her presence everywhere, and it afforded us a sense of peace and calm that we hadn't had in a long time. Even Bano, who we had expected wouldn't appreciate being put in a stable on the deck of a moving boat, was being very docile and just seemed content to rest, not even bothered about the large waves that we seemed to simply glide over.
Kassima was having so much fun, she ran around looking at everything, her favorite place being at the front where she could lean forward and watch as the waves came, being the first to experience the upward ride and then the downward slant. Keilic got a little sea sick, but Aizira took pity on him and made him some special broth with herbs to help cure him, and she even took it to him while he was lying in bed.
Unfortunately, while they were actually starting to connect fairly well, there were two people on the ship that were not getting along.
Farah and Alzik. The two could not seem to be within sight of one another before they would start to bicker, and nothing Sabrielle did was powerful enough to stop it. It started, I think, when Alzik made an off-hand comment about Farah's eating habits. And, of course, not being a woman you can just push around like that, she retorted with one about his eating habits and where he might have learned it. I honestly never thought Farah, of all people, could have such good insults up her sleeve, but I did have to cover Kassima's ears before Alzik returned fire, though I know she'd heard something far worse coming out of my mouth, still. I at least didn't want her to run away with the idea that it was alright for her to be hearing this, so at least she knew that she wasn't suppose to and would tune it out. She was very mature for her age, and older than her years, but she was still a child, and she could wait a good long time before she was ready for that sort of talk.
Ever since then, the two of them could not get along. It didn't help that Farah was an Indian princess, and it also didn't help that she was a woman. And as much as Aizira and I had done to break Alzik of his male superiority beliefs, it still wouldn't have been so bad if Farah had been a man. And I noticed that some of the things she said to him I could have gotten away with scot-free, in fact he probably would have laughed. But then, I knew how to say them, and Alzik had first met me and become my friend as a man, I was more like his girl-brother than anything else. We'd become that close after I'd opened myself up to him and told him about my childhood that night. And there was also the fact that there was absolutely no room for romantic attraction between us. I was engaged, after all, and however far our relationship came, 'wife' was at the very bottom of the list.
Farah, on the other hand, was not so untouchable, and so her insults struck him quite a bit harder than mine might if I said the exact same thing in the exact same way.
I was actually half tempted, one time, to repeat the exact same insult that Farah had used not long before, just to see how he reacted, and what he would do when he realized that Farah had said that exact same thing.
Two days passed, and though we sailed through a terrible storm, none of it touched us thanks to Sabrielle, and aside from that and the beef between Farah and Alzik, nothing really exciting was happening. But we were still speeding along at an alarming rate, and I began to wonder if we would catch up with the ship the Prince was on before he reached Egypt himself.
XD
"Well, you know if you had listened to me this wouldn't have happened!"
"Shut it, woman! I told you I can take care of it myself!"
"We're going to need another rope because of you!"
"I can fix it!"
"It's in four pieces!!! What the hell were you trying to do anyway!?"
"I forgot the part where that was your business!"
"Excuse me!? I'm sailing this ship too you know!"
"Oh, right, I forgot! Cleaning out the quarters is such an important part of sailing, how could I have been so inconsiderate?!"
"I'm only cleaning the quarters because that's what Kaida asked me to do! I know how to sail a ship!"
"And she asked me to take care of the sails, so why don't you do your job and let me do mine!?"
"Because you're going to ruin all of our rope!!!"
"I SAID I CAN FIX IT D(BEEP)IT!!!"
"FINE THEN, FIX IT! I'LL JUST STAND HERE AND WATCH THE MASTER AT WORK WHY DON'T I!?!?"
"Anyone else have a headache yet?" I asked as Aizira and Keilic came up from below deck, both looking more than a little irritated.
"I'm about to kill my brother, does anyone have a problem with that?" Aizira asked.
"I'm about to kill myself, does anyone have a problem with that?" Keilic asked.
"Oh come on, it's not that bad." I said with a sigh, "I mean, sure they can't seem to have one single civil conversation with each other, but suicide is hardly going to solve it. What we need is two good long pieces of rope, and gags." I said, making the two of them laugh hard.
"SEE!? I TOLD YOU! YOU CAN'T JUST PUT IT INTO KNOTS THAT DOESN'T WORK!!!" Farah yelled.
"What's Kassima doing?" I asked Aizira.
"She's playing with that bird thing down in the storage area." Aizira answered.
"Really?" I asked, suddenly interested. I hadn't really been keeping very close tabs on the others, in fact I'd been letting them come and go so long as they made sure they stayed out of sight and out of trouble. This had sort of been a bad idea concerning Aggle because the next thing we knew we were waking up to a Bano who had been decorated with sea weed and coral, which he did not appreciate no matter how much he liked Aggle. But the last thing I had expected from Deskor was to be playing with Kassima. What an interesting turn of events this was.
"Yeah, it was kind of weird, but sorta sweet in a very odd, disturbing way." She told me. "By the way, has that one harpy thing had her baby yet?" She asked.
"No, thank god." I answered, "But if she makes me put my hand on her stomach to feel it wiggle…ugh, you'd think it was an alien tentacle monster or something inside her stomach!"
"Gee, thank you for that. Exactly what are you talking about?" Keilic asked.
"Remember Bawaka and Kukwakin?" I asked him, and he nodded, "Well, their real names are the Dahaka and Kukarkin and Kukarkin is pregnant with the Dahaka's daughter, whom I got suckered into naming Solgara." I told him.
"Aaaaaand so, when the prince finds out about this he's probably going to rant about having nightmares again? Exactly why did he react that way?" Asked Keilic.
"You don't want to know." Aizira said, looking a bit green herself.
"Suffice it to say neither the Dahaka nor Kukarkin are particularly…ah…pleasant to look at." I told him. "You know what Sabrielle looks like? Well, when it comes to beauty…she's it. And she's not even the same as the rest of them." I said.
"So, what is she if she's not an 'inner demon'?" Asked Keilic.
"She's an inner angel." Answered Aizira, "At least, I'm guessing she's the one?" She asked.
"Yes, she is." I answered, nodding. "A while back I let them all out to get some fresh air and stretch their legs a bit, and one of them, Wemlast, revealed to me that…well…they were changing, that I was changing. I was becoming…different, and so a large number of the demons that have just been sleeping for the past few years finally disappeared forever, and in their place came Sabrielle. All my demons were born from the negative aspects of my soul, but Sabrielle…I'm not entirely sure what happened, exactly. I remember Zasalamel, I remember that he was holding the sword in my stomach so that I wouldn't be able to reverse time and make the wound disappear, and he was waiting for me to die. But then I realized…I didn't want to die, I wanted to live." I ran my fingers through my hair, "I know what you're thinking," I told Keilic, "But you have to understand, for the longest time, since before I was even old enough to understand what death really was, I've wanted to die. My life was nothing but hell, and it was only through the power of one of my inner demons that I did live. But now…" I sighed, feeling the wind whipping through my hair, smelling the salt of the sea, I didn't even mind the arguing sounds of Farah and Alzik anymore, "Now I want to live, I want to live, no, not for the prince, I want to live for myself. I want to live because of the prince, because of Kassima, because of you, and Alzik, and Farah. I want to live because even though our lives are filled with chaos and worry, for the first time I can feel bits of happiness, I have friends, I have a life. And I wasn't going to let Zasalamel take that away from me. Sabrielle is an angel who was born, not just from my love, but from my desire to live, to be alive, to stay alive. I want to experience all this world has to offer, I want to grow old in this world, I want to use my power and strength to help it, I want to become apart of this world, even though I wasn't born here, even though it isn't my own."
"That's…that's just so wonderful." Aizira murmured.
"Yes, it's so wonderful I want to throw up." A familiar voice said, and I turned to see Monigan hanging over the side of the rail and looking more than a little put out about something. "By the way, we're swiftly approaching a Persian ship, and guess who's on it." She told me, grinning widely.
My breath caught in my throat and I scrambled to the front end of the ship. Sure enough, a boat was coming into view, and as we neared it, Sabrielle let go of her control over the boat and allowed it to sail by wind and momentum, still gaining on the other ship, but now not going fast enough that we would be in danger of overtaking it.
But before we got there, Alzik and Farah's bickering brought me back to reality, and they needed to be dealt with.
"Alright you two!" I said, breaking them up, "You can stop that now. We are currently approaching the very ship that my one true love is on, and if either of you interrupt our sappy-romantic reunion, I will be more than a little upset because I haven't seen him in over a whole, freak'n month and not even the gods could find an excuse good enough to spoil this for me. Alright? Are we clear? Good!" I said, not giving them the chance to answer.
"We're already nearing their ship? That's amazing!" Farah exclaimed, looking over to see us coming towards it.
"Oh yes, truly amazing, we've only been—OUCH! What was that for!?" Alzik exclaimed, rubbing his cheek where I'd punched him.
"Okay, I'm just going to make it a rule that neither of you are allowed to say anything to each other, or about each other for at least until I've had my sappy-romantic moment? Got it?" I said.
"Yes ma'am." They both said at once, and then they glared at each other for it, but they respected my wishes at least enough not to say anything to each other.
From a distance the captain of the other ship exchanged a friendly hail with Keilic, not yet realizing who he was, and even though their ship was definitely bigger, it was about the same height as ours, only quite a bit wider, and so was naturally slower than we were due to the fact that it, too, was a sail boat and relied on the wind to keep it moving. The other ship didn't seem too bothered by our presence, the captain obviously didn't seem concerned about us. Well, we were really too small to pose much threat, and we had no cannons or weapons out at the moment. So even though the prince was out on deck, he wasn't paying much attention to us, in fact he was at the front end of the ship, just like me, and staring straight ahead. He was so out of it that he didn't even notice when I jumped from my position to the railing, and then began scooting over so that I was right in front of him. All the others had gathered to the front of our ship to watch, and Keilic, at least, was grinning like an idiot.
I lifted myself up onto the rail in a crouching position so that, out of nowhere, I just suddenly appeared in front of him, our faces only inches apart, and the look on his face when he saw me almost made the whole thing worth it.
"Hey there handsome." I said, "Whatcha looking at?"
XP
Prince: Ah, you, gorgeous.
Kaida: Heh, thought so. (They start making out)
Kioko: Whoa, whoa, whoa, hey! Get a room!!!
DP: Or two, preferable separate with me in one of them. Guess whose. Okay my turn!!! (Pulls Kaida from Prince and starts making out with her himself)
Prince: HEY!!!
Rhea: (Gasp)!!! Kioko!!! Your hands!!! YOU'VE GOT SOMEONE'S SOUL ON YOUR HANDS!!!
Kioko: THAT'S AN ALLERGIC REACTION YOU NITWIT!!!
Rhea: Oh…
FD: An allergic reaction to what, exactly?
Kioko: …never you mind. Where's the Benadryl?
Rhea: But, but how are you having an allergic reaction? The only thing you're allergic to is…(GASP!) KIOKO!!! THAT'S ILLEGAL!!!
Kioko: Not if you SHUT UP!!!
Kaida: What's illegal?
Kioko: Never you mind.
Rhea: But Kioko! You still have two more years of probation left!!! What if you get caught!?
DP: Exactly what were you handling there?
Kioko: I won't get caught if you keep it down!!! The Guild isn't likely to mess with the dragon king's daughter, so as long as I'm in your house and you don't say anything I'm fine.
Rhea: But, but, you could really hurt yourself! It's the only thing you're allergic to! And it's dangerous already as it is! Why do you think it's illegal!?
Kioko: Why do you think it's so valuable?
Rhea: But…
Kioko: JUST GET TO THE FAQ ALREADY!!!
Rhea: You do it!
Kioko: What? Why?
Rhea: Because I said so!!!
Q: Who is Zasalamel, really?
A: Some people seem a bit confused. Zasalamel is, in fact, an original character, alright? It was only his name that was taken from Soul Caliber 3, they're not the same person, kapeesh (sp?)?
Q: Why is Kaida so afraid of him?
A: Because he's a freaky guy?
Zasalamel: (Strong British accent) I must say, I do not like my character at all so far. I don't believe anyone told me I was playing a sword-wielding muscle man when I signed up for this gig.
Rhea: Well you are! So deal with it! The real Zasalamel from Soul Caliber got a restraining order so you'll have to do.
Zasalamel: Brilliant, bloody brilliant…(Mutters something about talking to agent about this)
Q: How come Alzik and Farah don't like each other?
A: We got a serious case of 'prince and the pauper' going on here, the two of them just got off on the wrong foot and now they can't seem to get back up to right themselves for some reason. Besides, if everyone liked everyone else the story would be boring.
Q: What's the deal with Monigan being all moapy and Deskor becoming Kassima's babysitter?
A: The Inner Demons are changing, Monigan's resisting and Deskor's…just decided that it's futile in light of a pair of big kitty eyes.
Q: So just exactly what were you handling that—
Kioko: I THINK THAT'S ENOUGH FOR TODAY NOW WHERE'S THE F(BEEP)ING BENADRYL!?!?!?
Rhea: Read and Review…hopefully we'll be able to keep Kioko out of Witch Jail!!!
Kioko: IT'S CALLED A PRISON YOU NUMBSKULL!!!