Oh wow… I actually have something to say before we begin.

I'm sorry for how long this chapter took. I had it all raring and ready to go, but my computer ate everything I had done and I had to start all over again. I'm really mad about it… It was a great chapter. T.T

Anywho, I believe that Rai had some secrets to explain…

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Chapter 9: The Circus Maximus

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Rai led the others through the door that his assistants had gone through a few minutes earlier. They now found themselves in a kitchen/dining room. Sheila and Dharma were busy preparing breakfast, which looked to be eggs, corn porridge, and a variety of local fruits such as bananas, coconuts, and mangoes.

"Sir, we heard Tellah yelling," Sheila noted to the Elder. "Is there anything we can do?"

"Not now, Sheila," Rai dismissed, sinking into a chair at the table.

What am I going to tell these three? He wondered. Where do I start?

Porom climbed into the chair across the table from him. She crossed her arms on the tabletop and set her chin down on her wrists with a sour look on her face. Palom muttered his levitation spell and rose up above the tabletop, sitting cross-legged in the air, folding his arms angrily, and looking very angry. Instead of sitting in a chair, Cecil set his hands on the back of Porom's chair and braced himself against it. He looked exasperated and a bit peeved.

Rai gazed at them all, still not sure what he would say to them. "I know that you've probably got a list of questions about two miles long right now. I'm not sure where we should start."

"How about at the beginning?" Cecil suggested. "Who exactly is Tellah?"

Dharma dropped an egg on the floor, which splattered on everything in a two foot radius. Sheila gasped in alarm and pain and then stuck two fingers into her mouth, having just burnt them on the hot stove. She tried to say something, but since her fingers got in the way no one could tell what she was saying.

"What was that, Sheila?" Rai asked.

Dharma jumped in before she could answer. "We thought that you and Mira were never going to talk abut this again."

"What??" the twins chorused.

Rai wilted and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Tellah caused a lot of problems the last few months that he lived here. He brought quite a bit of shame on the family; we were thinking about kicking him out, but he left on his own before we could decide."

"So he really is our uncle?" Palom asked.

"He is, er… my older… my…"

Cecil groaned. "I don't have any leave to speak to you so sharply, but this is getting absolutely ridiculous," he said. "No more beating about the bush; out with it, already!"

"I'm sorry; it's just been so long sine I've said it," Rai said sheepishly. He took a deep breath. "Tellah is… my twin brother."

The twins gasped; Palom nearly fell over and Porom looked like she was going to cry. Cecil's jaw nearly fell off his face. Sheila and Dharma just sighed sadly and shook their heads.

"He was your twin and you were going to kick him out?!" Cecil exclaimed when he found his voice again. "What on earth did he do?!"

"He cheated at one of our most important races," Dharma answered, finishing cleaning up his broken egg. "Cecil, do you know how we decide on our next Elder?"

"I'm afraid I don't," the paladin answered.

"No, you wouldn't. We chose by rounding up all the best mages in the city, all between the ages of, oh, 18 and 25. These kids must then go through a series of tests of skill; simple one-on-one magical battles. Of course, the loser is eliminated and the winner advances. Eventually, you are left with the two strongest challengers, and the fight. The winner becomes the new Elder.

"Naturally, Tellah, Rai, and Mira were all participants in this race. And no one doubted that one of them would rise to take the title. They all got very far in the running, until, one day, Mira wound up facing off with Tellah and she was expelled from the race."

"Not that she minded," Sheila put in. "She was in love with a boy at the time."

"What does that have to do with anything?" Palom asked sourly.

"One of the rules of the race is that you aren't allowed to have a boyfriend or a girlfriend. The point of being the Elder is that you're supposed to be dedicated totally to the wellness of the city, and to his or her craft. It's a bit hard to do all that when you have a husband or a wife, or kids," Sheila explained, bringing over several steaming plates of food. She carried them over on her arms, like a professional waitress, and set them gracefully before everyone at the table.

"Eat up," she insisted when Cecil and the twins hesitated to pick up their forks. "You've been on that mountain for half a week, and you never did eat dinner last night; you must all be half starved."

Porom handed a plate and a fork up to her brother and they both started eating ravenously. Cecil took a seat beside Porom and tried to eat a little slower and neater than they.

"Please, continue," he insisted. "We're listening."

Sheila and Dharma joined them at the table with plates of their own, and Rai picked up the story from where Sheila had left off.

"So, anyways," he said, ignoring his plate, "Mira left the race with her head held high and went off the court her boy. Tellah and I remained, with many others, of course; including Dharma."

Porom looked up, interested. "You were in the race too?"

"I'm your uncle's age; I've been his friend for longer than you think," the black mage informed proudly.

"Aside from the three of us," Rai continued, "there was also a young woman named Samantha. We'd all known Sammy since we were little boys; she and Mira were good friends. She was incredible talented; she also got very far in the running.

"She was a sweet girl, Sammy," he reminisced. "She was sprightly lass: slightly smaller than average, soft dreamy brown eyes, long firry red hair; she always reminded me of a little pixie person."

"You sound like a teenager again," Dharma interjected.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Rai said, shaking his head sharply as if waking from a dream.

"You loved her?" Porom guessed, shoving her plate back to Sheila; even though she used no word, it was plain that she wanted more. Sheila rose from her chair, taking the plate back to the stove and glopping more eggs and porridge onto the plate.

"It's rather safe to say that most of the boys in the race were in love with her," Rai admitted. "I mean, she was irresistible. Her ruthlessness in battle, the way she handled herself in a tough situation, the way she floored everyone she faced—boy or girl—there was just something about the woman that made us all melt. All the boys wanted her, all the girls wanted to be her, and there she was on her own little pedestal, so unattainably out of reach… even for her friends."

"But what does that have to do with Tellah cheating?" Palom asked. He held out his empty plate. "Can I have some more?"

"I'll take it," Sheila said, taking the plate to the stove.

"Tellah used her to cheat," Rai answered.

Cecil choked on his food. "He used her?"

"She also used him," Rai added. "I didn't find this out until later, but they had been seeing each other in secret for most of the race."

"They broke the rule, and they did it happily," Dharma sighed. "They should have both been disqualified."

"So what did they do?" Palom asked.

"On a day when Sammy was to battle someone, Tellah would go and rig the battle somehow. Not anything obvious, not even something that would do much damage. But it would take just enough out of her opponent so that she could get an easy shot. The advantages his rigs gave her, plus her already formidable power, made her totally unstoppable."

"And then she went and did the same thing for him," Dharma finished. "I was tossed by Sammy a few weeks before the final. By then, it was down to Sammy, Tellah, and Rai. The competition was fierce; the three names were put in a hat and two were drawn to face each other: it was Sammy versus Tellah."

Cecil choked again, this time with laughter.

"That's irony," he gasped between coughs.

"So who was eliminated?" Porom asked excitedly.

"Sammy," Dharma answered. "Now it was down to the infamous Faraxhae brothers. Needless to say that we were all incredibly excited."

"This battle also happened to coincide with Mira's honeymoon," Sheila added. "She married her boy, Jackie, and they were packing to leave for their honeymoon when Tellah defeated Sammy. They were set to leave as soon as one of her brothers won."

"Wait, wait, wait," Palom interrupted. "Mom married the guy she was dating when she got kicked out of the race?"

"She did," Sheila answered. The twins stared at her like she had said something horrible.

"Why are you looking at her like that?" Rai asked.

"What happened to him?" Porom asked, standing up on the chair.

"Your mother never told you?" Rai asked, sounding surprised.

The twins shook their heads in disbelief.

The other mages all sighed sadly.

"He disappeared a few months before you were born," Dharma answered. "He was lost at sea."

The twins wilted.

"She never told us anything about him," Palom mumbled.

"Cheer up a little bit," Rai insisted. "He was the one who discovered what had been going on with Tellah and Sammy."

"Really?" Porom asked, perking up a little.

"And just in time, too," Sheila added. "With Sammy's help, Tellah beat Rai soundly and won the title of Elder."

"Tellah was the Elder??" Cecil asked.

"Only for a few weeks, until Jackie figured out how they had been winning so easily. The first thing he did was run to Rai and Mira," Sheila explained.

"What did you do about him?" Palom asked.

"We trekked up Mount Ordeals to seek out some help," Rai answered.

"Some help? On the mountain? What, were you going to round up some monsters or something?" Cecil asked.

"We were looking for some… spells," Rai corrected.

"You mean, you and Mira were looking for Meteor as well?"

"Not Meteor, per se."

"The forbidden spells," the twins breathed together.

Rai nodded. "Yes, we were looking for the forbidden spells."

"Is that where Tellah got the idea?" Palom asked.

"No, we got it from him. He's been obsessed with Meteor since he was ten. Mira and I thought they were pretty neat, but it wasn't like we were as interested in them as he was."

"Did you find what you were looking for?" Cecil asked.

"I gained the Blitzkrieg spell; it unleashes a lightning spell so powerful that it can kill every living water creature within 20 miles of the casting point. As for Mira, she came away with the spell Iceblink."

"Let me guess, a really big Blizzard spell?" Cecil guessed.

"Capable of turning a desert to an ice cap in a matter of hours," Rai informed.

"How many forbidden spells are there, anyway?" Cecil asked.

"There are six," Rai informed. "Meteor, Blitzkrieg, and Iceblink you know. Then there are Tangle (a plant spell), Twister (a wind spell), and Hurricane (a water spell)."

"Actually, this was something else that Jackie discovered about Sammy," Dharma added. "During the race, she went on vacation outside of the city for several days. It turned out that she had slipped away to the mountain to learn a forbidden spell. This was enough to disqualify her in and of itself. It was to be a last resort; she used it in her battle against Tellah. It didn't matter; she was out of the race either way."

"Which one was it?" Porom asked.

"Hurricane, I believe," Rai answered.

"Your father stumbled over all of this the night before he and your mother were to leave. It ended postponing their honeymoon for a few months; there were several trials and other proceedings when he exposed them," Sheila said sadly.

"What for?" Cecil asked.

"Interrogating Sammy and Tellah took a few weeks by itself, mainly because it was interrogating the Elder. (Which almost never happens, and it very tricky when it does happens.) And then there was interviewing Mira, Jackie, and Rai to see what else they knew. And then there was all the formality with deposing Tellah and finding something to do with him and Sammy, and then, finally, more formality with installing the first runner up as the Elder—the first runner up, being Rai," Sheila explained.

"There were many people—Tellah and Sammy included—who didn't think it was fair that I became the Elder by default. It took a while to calm them down. During this time, Jackie and Mira managed to slip away, and they didn't come back until things were settled again," Rai added. "I don't blame them.

"Of course, by that time Sammy and Tellah were still under house arrest, and I was still trying to figure out a good punishment for them. A lot of people called for their banishment, and I was thinking that it was the best choice for everyone. After all, after the things they had done, they could never be accepted again. However, a few days after Mira and Jackie returned, Tellah and Sammy had disappeared. They never left a note or anything saying where they had gone. They were just… gone."

"They never even wrote or returned to visit. Not that they would have been welcomed warmly if they had comeback," Dharma added.

"What about our dad?" Porom pressed. "What happened to him?"

"Your father… he vanished as well, about seven years ago," Sheila said. "Seven year to the day in a few weeks, I believe. He was on a ship headed to Baron for a trading mission. Your mother was three months pregnant with you kids when he left. While he was away, we were hit with a long rain storm. It didn't do much damage, but we were all nervous about the ship your father was on. The wind and rain subsided, and a few weeks passed. We received a letter from baron, asking about the ship and if it had been delayed, because it hadn't arrived. A few more weeks later, they sent another letter, saying once again that the ship still hadn't come into port. Mysidian and Baronian ships set sail to search for the lost ship, but no trace of it was ever found. No debris, no bodies, not a whisper of the ship's whereabouts anywhere. It seemed that every other ship that had been in the area during the storm had made it to its destination except that one."

"Sounds like a conspiracy to me," Cecil muttered.

"We have thought about that," Rai agreed. "Sammy did know the Hurricane spell."

"I don't know if it was Sammy; she would have been living in Kaipo, with Tellah and Anna seven years ago. In fact, she might have been… dead seven years ago. I know that Tellah had a wife and that she's been dead for some time now. Red hair, brown eyes, you say?" Cecil asked.

"Yes, yes indeed," Rai said, nodding his head.

"Anna, too, had red hair and brown eyes."

"Hmmm…"

"Is there any chance that dad is still alive somewhere?" Palom asked hopefully.

"Well, we certainly like to think so," Dharma answered. "He wasn't good enough to enter the race, but he was a good friend. In fact, he wasn't very talented with magic at all. He worked at the sundries shop in the inn."

"Do you really think he could still be alive?" Porom asked.

"We hope he is, but the chances are almost non-existent," Sheila said sadly.

The twins were silent.

"…Why didn't you tell us any of this?" Palom asked.

"You're small children yet," Sheila said. "How do you explain these sorts of things to six year olds?"

"And anyway, you never asked," Dharma added.

"I can't believe that we had an uncle and a cousin out there and we never knew about it," Porom lamented. "And now Anna's dead and we'll never be able to see her."

"Can I ask you kids a very important question?" Rai asked. "When Cecil goes back to Baron, Tellah is going with him. You were quite intent on accompanying them, yes?"

"Yeah; we really, really want to go with them."

"Even knowing all this about Tellah, you still want to go with them?"

Palom made a dismissive noise. "We don't want to go with Tellah."

"We want to go with Cecil," Porom finished for him.

Sheila and Dharma smiled to themselves at the twin's cuteness.

"You think they can go?" Sheila asked Rai.

"I was intending for them to go back to their lessons at the end," Rai admitted.

"Aw man! We don't to go back to our lessons! That's no fun at all!" Palom protested.

"I wasn't finished," Rai interrupted. "That was before I knew you'd get so attached to him. And I think that he can still use your help. Your mother will hit me with more nasty Fire spells, but it will be worth it in the end. I know it. That is, if Cecil is willing."

"Are you kidding? I couldn't leave them here if I wanted to," Cecil said brightly.

"Even knowing that they were spying on you?" Dharma asked.

"Yes, even though they were—what?"

"Well, to say that I only sent them to help you would be grossly inaccurate," Rai admitted.

Cecil turned to the twins. "Is this true, guys?"

They both turned away and blushed deeply.

"We didn't, really," Porom insisted. "He told us to, and we were going to, but we just couldn't."

"Yeah," Palom agreed. "We… we ended up liking you too much. Even when you were still a dark knight, you weren't so bad. In fact, going up the mountain, you were really nice and we thought, you know, that maybe we didn't need to spy on you. So we didn't."

Rai laughed. "I wondered if it would turn out like this."

"So, can we go with them again?" Porom asked.

"You have my leave. You have the rest of the day to get ready; I'd suggest you use your time wisely."

Porom jumped onto the floor with a whoop and dashed for the door.

"Hey! Porom, wait for me!" Palom yelled. He jumped to the floor and ran after her.

"Hm. This has been about the most interesting breakfast I've ever been a part of," Cecil stated. "Believe it or not, I stopped thinking about Rosa for a little while."

"It's only half past seven," Sheila noted, taking the empty plates around the table. "Dharma, help me get this place shaped up."

"I'll help you," Cecil offered. "I don't think the twins can cause too much trouble in the meantime."

"Oh, thank you, Cecil," Sheila said sweetly.

"It's no problem."

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Tellah was startled out of his angry reverie by a light knocking on the door. He expected to find one of the annoying interns on the other side, but was cheered and a bit intimidated to find the twins instead.

"Good morning, kids. I heard that you came to spend the night last night."

"We heard that you're our uncle," Palom added.

Tellah felt like a ton of bricks had just dropped on his head.

"Don't tell me that you heard that argument earlier."

"We did. Every word," Porom informed.

"And Rai told about me?"

"And Cecil too," Palom informed.

"…So, what do you kids think?"

"Well, we wish you and Anna and Sammy had been here with us. Maybe, if you had been here, they wouldn't have had to die," Porom suggested.

"Perhaps not," Tellah agreed. "How's your mother?"

"She's okay, I guess. Want to see her?"

Tellah nodded. "I'd like that. Oh, and your father? Has he been doing alright?"

The twins bowed their heads sadly.

"He didn't die as well?"

"Maybe he did. We don't know," Porom lamented.

Tellah felt terrible for them, but he didn't want to press them further. He'd talk to Mira about it and get the full story. He hadn't planned on seeing her, but maybe it would do them both some good.

"Lead the way, kids. It'll be good to see my baby sister again."

The twins brightened.

"Maybe, when Cecil finds what he's looking for and he doesn't need our help anymore, you can come back here with us and we can all be a family," Palom thought. "And then, when we come back, we can find out if dad is alive! We can all do it together!"

Tellah smiled his nephew's enthusiasm.

"I'm sure that we will. A family can do anything. If only they can work together."

"Maybe that's what mom's problem is," Porom said as she and he brother led the way down the stairs.

"What do you mean?" Tellah asked.

"Well, she doesn't really use any of her cool spells anymore," Palom explained. Neither does uncle Rai. Not unless they really need to. And then you couldn't remember any of your spells. Do you think it's because you lost all of your family until you found us?"

Tellah hadn't thought of this. This was an excellent idea; they really were prodigies!

"Perhaps we'll grab a bite to eat somewhere on the way," Tellah thought. "I haven't had a descent square meal in weeks."

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(Church choir sings) AHLELUIAH!!

I can't believe that I finally got around to finishing this chapter! I did most of it in a single day. I'm so pleased!

It sounds so much better now that I had some time to think before I actually wrote. The timing didn't make sense at all the first time I wrote the chapter. I guess that it's a good thing I had some time to step back and think for a bit. This whole chapter is completely independent of the game, so it's not like I had a guide. I hope you liked all the kinks!

Well, most of the next chapter won't exactly be guided either, so I should do some more thinking, I guess.

Ciao!