SARF Chapter 3
It was early morning when 16 year old Linebeck exited a pale yellow two story home, a brown pack slung over his shoulder.
"See yah later, Maxi!" He calls, turning back towards the house, making him walk backwards.
"Later, Becky!" Max calls back, before closing the door.
Linebeck chuckles as he turns back around. He never understood why those nick-names stuck.
They had been hanging out at the age of twelve, and Max dared Linebeck to climb a tree. Linebeck refused and Max began calling him Becky, since he was actin like a girl. Linebeck, twelve year old pride wounded, immediately dared Max to climb the tree with him. Max also refused and Linebeck then started doing the same thing as Max, calling him Maxi. The boys both ended up climbing the tree, then both fell when the branch they were sitting on broke from their combined wight and ended up on the forest floor, breath knocked out and left arms broken. "Bad idea, Maxi?" Linebeck wheezed out, grimacing with pain. "Oh yeah, Becky." Max said back, holding his left arm to his chest, and the names stuck.
Bringing his thoughts back to the present, Linebeck looked up at the sun that was starting to peek out over the mountain on Farqay island. "Good thing I told Mum that I might have needed to stay over the night for the project." He mused to himself, as he begins walking through the town waking itself up.
"Good morning, Master Brante!" A gray haired man calls out, pausing in his sweeping off the bar step.
"Morning Mr. Rybak." Linebeck returns, walking over to the man. "How are you?"
"I'm good, Master Brante." Mr. Rybak says, leaning on his broom.
"Did you hear those gunshots last night?" Linebeck inquires.
"Oh yeah, thought it might some young idiot teenage boys minds trying to out-do each other." Mr. Rybak says, looking at Linebeck, merriment twinkling in his eyes.
Linebeck chuckles good-naturally. "Well, Max's and mine idiot minds were hard at work last night."
"That's good to hear." Mr. Rybak says, nodding. "Well, I got a bar to open and you need to be gettin' on home. Your Mum's most likely worried." He begins sweeping the step again.
"See you, Mr. Rybak!" Linebeck finishes, continuing on his way.
Little over ten minutes later, Linebeck was walking down the path to his home when he notices a strange smell on the air, just noticeable under the scent of the ocean.
"It almost smells... coppery." He thinks, slowing down slightly in his walk.
Shaking his head, he picks back up his pace, trying to ignore the seed of worry in his stomach.
Suddenly a chill goes down his spine when he hears nothing but the crunch of his boots on the gravel. Absolutely no birds were singing and nothing seemed to be rustling in the bushes.
His eyes dart around before be begins speed-walking to the Brante Household.
The time between the town and the Brante's home was about thirty minutes so by the time Linebeck was five minutes away from home, the sun was completely out from behind the mountain.
"The smell got stronger." Linebeck almost whimpers in his mind, dread chilling his bones as the worry twisted in his gut.
He looked down at the path and saw coin-sized dark droplets staining the dusty path. Linebeck gulps and bends down to examine them. He reaches out and touches the droplets.
His heart stops when he realizes what the droplets are.
"Probably was a animal that might had been wounded by the gunshots." He pleads in his head.
That hope was destroyed when he noticed tracks beginning to lead off into the woods and more dried blood on the leaves. One looked to be footsteps of a grown man holding a heavy package.
His pack hits the path when Linebeck sprints for home, heart beating double time.
He ignores the front door, knowing his mother kept it locked. He skids to a stop behind his home, heart freezing at the open back door. The copper smell was overpowering now.
Linebeck sends up a silent prayer to the Goddesses for his sister and mother were safe as he slowly steps in the back, onto the dried blood there. He shivers.
When he steps into the dark living room, he falls against the sofa as his knees buckle at the sight of Marlene's body. Tears begin to burn in his eyes as he continues staring at his mother's body, unable to tear his eyes away from the sight.
Swallowing hard, clenching his eyes tight, Linebeck pushes himself off the sofa back, making himself walk past Marlene to check upstairs for his sister.
On the third floor, Linebeck notices the broken flower pot and bullet hole in his doorway. He checks it and sees that it was locked. He curses himself as he turns towards his sister's open door.
In there, only the fact that the Blue Tala was still wilted on her desk and her desk chair was on it's back gave away the fact that something was wrong.
"Perhaps, perhaps she's at the sea cave. Waiting for me." Linebeck scrabbles in his head, hoping that Linette didn't share her mother's fate.
Linebeck freezes at the top of the stairwell. He really didn't want to head back down, but he needed to check if Linette was really at the cave and with the way his body was trembling, he wasn't sure if he could handle climbing down the tree.
Finally, Linebeck forces his legs to bend and begin walking down the steps.
But when he makes it back down to the first floor, he finds that he doesn't need to check the cave.
Beside the back door, Parochially hidden by the door, making it where Linebeck wouldn't have see it when it, was written "Where's your sister now?" in what Linebeck knew was blood. Under it was signed. "Your father, Jolon."
A scream erupts from Linebeck's throat as he bolts from the house, terror, panic and grief seizing his heart. Birds that had remained silent, burst to life at Linebeck's scream, fleeing from the trees.
Linebeck trips over his abandoned bag while running down the path and falls onto the dirt path. Curling into the fetal position, sobs begin to rack through his sixteen year old body.
That where Mr. Rybak and his teacher, Ms. Rey along with a few other townspeople find him when they rushed to the isolated home, alerted to the fact that something was wrong at the screams.
"Linebeck?" Ms. Rey exclaims, bending by the young sailor, putting her hand on his shoulder. "What's wrong? What happened?"
Linebeck shudders, remaining silent. He wasn't even sure if he could even talk.
Ms. Rey glances up at Mr. Rybak. "Looks like shock is setting in, go check the house for what could warrant such a strong reaction."
Mr. Rybak nods and along with a few other towns men, they go examine the house, their boots crunching away on the rocks on the dirt path.
By the time they come back, Linebeck's sob subsided. He still was lying on the path but his emerald eyes were wide open, staring at nothing. His mother's body and the bloody words seemed to be burned into his skull and everything he closed his eyes, they appeared.
"Marlene's dead." Mr. Rybak mummers to Ms. Rey. "It seems like Jolon finally found them again."
Ms. Rey gasps. "Oh Goddesses, is Linette..." She trails off.
Mr. Rybak shakes his head. "She's gone. Jolon must've took her." A deep, sorrow filled sigh. "I pray to the Goddesses she's safe."
Ms. Rey lets out a soft sob, having a soft spot for the twins.
Mr. Rybak kneels beside Linebeck before looking up at Max's father. "Hewitt, help me get him to the bar."
Hewitt nods and bends by Linebeck's other side. Gently, the two men lift up Linebeck's body, putting his arms around their necks.
"Come on Master Brante." Hewitt grunts.
Linebeck felt like he was on auto-pilot. His mind could only focus on the facts that his mother was dead, murdered by his father, Linette was gone, taken by their father, and that his father was the reason his family was ripped apart.
Marlene had told the twins to take care of each other if something bad happened to her, no matter what life would throw at them.
Linebeck felt like he failed before he could even start.
The blackness that had been threatening, fully consumes Linebeck's guilt filled mind, sending into welcomed oblivion as he blacks out.
...
So this is my way of breaking up the fluffiness. In between the chapters that hold Ciela and Linebeck, or happen 13 years after this, will be these chapters in Italics. If I didn't do this, you would have two chapters of mainly fluff and I wanted to give more info on Linebeck's past before the Phantom Quest and his thoughts during the Quest.
So what did you guys think of this chapter? It will seem familiar since you read in IIRY? the above scene when Linebeck tells it to Ciela.
Cielbeck romance and more of Farqay island in the next chapter.
And what are you guys thinking of the new FF? Some things I like better, like the personalized images for your stories.
~8 Navy Roses.