The Eye of Gods

by: dnrl

Chapter Six: Autumn Lullaby

"I'm an idiot."

I glanced over at Sudi, who was draped over the hard park bench opposite mine. He had a hand thrown across his face, the other toying with a piece of gravel from the path. "No you're not."

"Yes, I am." He sighed and rolled onto his side to face me. "I've been thinking about the plane thing. I'm an idiot."

"You won," I pointed out.

"Yes, and you won that fight against the other monster, but it didn't stop you from being a spaz," he deadpanned. "Anyway, I've been working some figures in my head. Let's consider that for the average Boeing 747, which is considerably larger than the plane that we were flying, top speed usually hits about two hundred and forty miles per hour."

"Does it?"

He rolled his eyes. "We're not considering facts, we're considering a scenario. Keep up. Yes. It does. I weigh about…hmm. We already halfway American with the calculations, so in pounds I weigh about one hundred and sixty. So a one hundred and sixty pound boy is thrown – throws himself, whichever – out of a plane going, as I have said, two hundred and forty miles per hour with nothing protective save a pair of goggles. At this point, the terminal gravity is exerting a force on the boy of about ten meters per second squared, which means that the odds are astronomically low that the boy will reach his target. However, due to, let's say, a fluke in which the jet stream from the airliner assists in the length of his jump, a miracle occurs and the boy hits the wing of the airliner – where, upon standing up, he is buffeted by winds of about two hundred and forty miles per hour. Technically, this one hundred and sixty pound boy should be blown off of the streamlined surface of the jet wing. But not only did he remain – he also managed to successfully kill something and then live to be rescued and managed to survive the low oxygen content that naturally comes with the higher atmosphere. I think we just had a deus ex machina."

"A what?" I asked, still rather stunned from the calculations running through Sudi's head.

"Look, by all rights I should have either been overshot by the jetstream and died or I should have avoided the jetstream and still died. If, by some miracle, that didn't happen, the oxygen content in the air couldn't have been enough at that altitude to keep me alive for five minutes if I was perfectly still. As it was, it kept me alive for eight minutes as I clung, slid, and fought a creature from myths. The rope that Andre threw me shouldn't have been able to reach me – according to the laws of physics, it should have gotten caught in the force from the turbine engine. And two people aren't enough to counteract a two hundred and forty mile gust of constant wind. Something was helping us."

"Was it the same god from before?" I wondered, biting at my thumbnail as I thought. "He doesn't seem like he would, though…"

"He's a god," Sudi sighed irritably. "Who knows what he would do?"

"Point," I conceded.

"Still," he said, shifting restlessly on the bench, "it's good to know we've got someone on our side."

"Yeah, really." I slumped down on the bench, shoving my hands in the pocket of my hoodie. There was a light drizzle that came and went, the moon dodging in and out of the light rainclouds. I squinted up at the sky, trying to guess whether or not more wetness was on its way. "What time do we have to be back at the hangar?"

He looked at his watch. "Andre said fifteen minutes, but it's not like he'll just up and leave without us."

"With my luck," I laughed, "I wouldn't doubt it." He made a strange noise in his throat and I looked over to see his eyebrows digging down into his eyes as he squinted at my bench – or something just below it. I pulled my feet up hurriedly, curling them into my chest and wiggling around until I could see through the planks. There was something…odd-shaped in the darkness beneath the wood. "Sudi…what is it?"

He let out a sudden laugh, pushing himself up and off of his bench. "You speak any German?"

"What? No, why?"

"Because I only speak a little, and I'm pretty bad at it. Um…Ich sage hallo zum Hund Ihr Mutter," he said, his voice lilting up in a questioning sound at the end. "I'm pretty sure I just said 'hello, there.'"

"It sounded like you said 'mother,'" I told him, growing agitated. "What is it you're talking to?"

There was a sudden flurry of movement, and a pink ball of wool threw itself straight at a crouching Sudi, knocking him onto the ground. In the time it took me to get on my feet, it – she, I supposed – had straddled Sudi's chest and was beating at his face with fat toddler fists, yelling frantically in German. She was young – three, maybe – and all wrapped up in pink wool and little white bobbles. Little brown corkscrew curls were peeking out from under a little pink hat, and ferocious, scared blue eyes glared at Sudi.

"Ich sage Anfang! Ich sage Anfang!" Sudi cried. "I'm telling her to stop, she's not listening! Prop!" he wailed. I gently lifted the little girl from behind and plopped her on the bench, avoiding her wildly swinging arms and legs. She clambered onto her feet on the bench, pressing herself against the back beams and trembling slightly, her face a mask of terrified three-year-old defiance. "Es ist gut. Wir verletzten Sie nicht morgens."

She glared at Sudi suspiciously, and I began rifling through the pockets in my jeans and my hoodie.

"What are you doing?" he asked me.

"She's a little kid!" I said.

"Well, yeah."

I let out a sigh, which was quickly followed by a cry of triumph. "Ah-ha!" I trumpeted, waving my sought-after prize in the air. I tore open a corner and offered it to the little girl, who was beginning to look marginally less frightened. "Chocolate," I said. She took it in her pudgy little fist and began gnawing on the corner. She paused for a moment to give me a megawatt smile before returning to the candy bar, content and appeased for now.

"Is that what you're supposed to do with children?" Sudi asked, wonder in his voice. "I could never figure it out. You just give them sugar and they're all right?"

I huffed. "No. You're not really supposed to, but it keeps them quiet until they finish what they're eating. She'll probably take a while. What are we supposed to do with her?"

"Leave her where we found her. Like finding a wallet on the ground."

"You're supposed to turn the wallet into a police station."

"Then let's bring her to a policeman!"

The little girl's curly head snapped up. "Polizist?" she said, suspicion ringing clear in her voice.

"Ja der nette Polizist. Wir holen ihn Ihnen und bilden safe." He turned to me. "How do you say 'safe' in German?"

"I don't know, and I don't like the look on her face," I said. It was hard and cold and she was clutching the chocolate bar with white knuckles. The German began pouring out of her faster than Spanish from a Latina soap opera starlet, the world polizist being said several times in quick succession, accompanied by neins, which I was fairly sure meant "no."

"Apparently she doesn't like the police."

"Apparently," agreed Sudi. "Nein, nein. I wonder why."

"E-e-e-excuse m-m-me." As one, Sudi and I snapped around to find the source of the noise. It turned out to be a tiny teenaged girl, a little younger than me. She had a halo of thick, fuzzy copper curls around her head, wire glasses on the bridge of her nose, and a pair of jeans and a lumpy sweater that were both far too large for her. There was a book held in one hand and the other was curled into a fist. She was biting her lip. "I-I-I was lo-lo-looking for h-h-her. She's m-m-my little sister at th-th-the orphanage. She g-g-got lost. M-m-my apologies for d-d-d-disturbing you." Her words were clear, but heavily coated under a German accent. She made a little bow at us and darted forward, bird-like, to grab the girl's hand. "Für Grund der Güte, Eliza, erklärte ich Ihnen, gesetzt zu bleiben! Schauen Sie jetzt, was Sie gegangen und getan haben!"

"Eins von ihnen ist nett! Er. Er gab mir Schokolade." The last word sounded like "chocolate," a little bit, and she was pointing at me, so I figured she was telling the new girl about my gift.

"Ich interessiere nicht mich für Schokolade! Sie erinnern sich an letztes Mal!" the elder lectured. The younger visibly deflated, curls sagging a bit.

"Monster…" agreed the little girl, nodding.

"Hey, we're not monsters!" I broke in. "We kill monsters!"

Sudi shot me a glare, and it took me a minute to realize that these were mortals – clueless mortals, who were probably talking about pedophiles or boogeymen or the closet monster as opposed to giant lion-snakes and topless winged women. I bit my lip.

"You k-k-k-kill them?" the second girl forced out.

The younger gave a sudden hard tug on the sleeve of the arm holding the book. The novel tumbled to the ground, and I bent to pick it up. Behind me, Sudi snorted.

"Of course you're chivalrous…"

"Shut up," I told him, fighting a blush. "H-here," I offered, holding the book out to her. She snatched it back, a scowl forming on her face.

"S-s-s-top m-m-making fun of m-m-m-my st-st-st – problem." She glowered, nostrils flaring, looking the very picture of terrified, defensive fury. I quickly held up my hands in the universal "no harm" gesture.

"I'm n-not making fun," I said, fighting to subdue my own stammer. "I-I stammer, too."

"It's sort of endearing, after a while," Sudi drawled from where he sat crosslegged on the ground. He seemed to be having a staring contest with the little girl, who was pouting and staring back intensely. "Really, I didn't think it would be at first, but it's quite grown on me. Dammit!" The younger girl smirked, stuck her tongue out at Sudi, and scurried behind the older girl's legs.

"Eliza," sighed the elder girl. "Anschlag."

"That word!" Sudi suddenly exclaimed, turning to look at the older girl so quickly I got whiplash. "What does that word mean?!"

"St-st-stop," replied the startled girl, looking as nonplussed as I felt.

"I thought that that was anfang," he said, frowning in puzzlement.

The girl let out something close to a laugh. "That m-m-m-means 'begin,'" she said, a tiny smile picking up the corners of her mouth before she adopted a somewhat defensive expression again.

"…double dammit," he hissed. "So that was why she wouldn't stop…"

I sighed and pinched the bridge of my nose. "Look, sorry about all of this. Um, i-it's okay that I gave her the chocolate, right?" Be strong, Prop. No more stammering. You killed a weird Egyptian thing. You're supposed to be a hero. No. More. Stammering.

"Y-yes, ch-chocolate is f-f-fine. Danke," she said. "Um, a-a-are you and your fr-fr-friend lost?"

"Oh, n-no…" I blushed. No more stammering! "We're just waiting for our plane."

She blinked and took a subtle look around her. "Th-this is a park."

Sudi sighed as he clambered up from the path, brushing dirt of the back of his jeans. "What the idiot here means is that we're waiting until a certain time so we can go back to the airport, get on our jet, and fly away. Only we have no idea where the airport is."

"What?" I asked, rounding on him. "How do we not know?!"

He gave me a devil-may-care grin. "I didn't look where we were going."

"Sudi! You had better be kidding!"

"Hey, I was distracted."

"You were singing."

"And thus distracted."

"Come on!"

"E-e-excuse me," cut in the girl. The smaller one was peering around her legs, thumb in mouth, staring at us with big baby blues. "I m-may know t-t-the way to t-t-the airport."

"Excellent. Let's go."

She blinked. "I…I need to t-t-take Eliza back."

"Sure," I said. Sudi opened his mouth to speak and I glared. "No. You do not have speaking rights. You got us into this mess, she is going to get us out, and you have nothing more to say." I turned back to the older girl and Eliza, and I tried for a winning smile. I think I did okay. "So, um, you're taking her back to the…orphanage?"

The older girl nodded. She opened her mouth to speak, but Sudi beat her to it.

"Well," he drawled, "can we get a name first? I mean, I could keep calling you Large and Fuzzy Sweater girl, but it's rather long and it tires my brain." I glared.

"That's why you're not allowed to speak."

"Ada," the girl interrupted. "M-my name is Ada Ingraham. Th-this is E-Eliza Fath."

"Ada," I said, smiling. "Nice to m-meet you." Stop stammering! "And you, Eliza. I'm Prop, and this is Sudi."

She beamed up at me with toddler-glee, dashing over to clutch onto my jeans. She nuzzled her face into my leg and giggled. She looked up at me with large blue eyes. "Herauf?" she asked. I looked to Ada.

"Up," she translated. "Sh-she wants to b-b-be held." A dull red flush rose in her cheeks, and I felt like giving her a hug. She had to be trying harder than I was to hold back her stammer. Instead, I reached down and swooped the toddler off of her feet.

"Oof! Heavy," I grunted, settling her around until she found a comfortable spot on my hip. "All set?"

She cuddled herself into the side of my neck, and a chubby fist reached out to grab the front of my hoodie. I took that as German-toddler-speak for "yes." He looked up to find Sudi giving him a deadpan stare and Ada smiling into the collar of her sweater. "Let's go," he muttered, blushing furiously.

"Th-the orphanage is close to the airp-p-port," Ada said, motioning us forward. We walked a few steps behind her, and Sudi, of course, argued.

"Well then, why not just take us to the airport first and then you and the munchkin can go to the orphanage?" he asked. Well. Demanded was more like it. "Seriously, you'd be making the trip twice as long for yourself." He continued on in this vein until we reached a dimly lit street, crowded with cars and people who looked at the ground as they bustled along. Really friendly. Ada sighed.

"F-f-fine!" she relented. "W-we'll go to the airp-port first."

"You don't have to," I assured her, as I had multiple times in our walk thus far. We took a left turn and began to walk farther away from the town. "We can do whatever's best for you."

She scuffed at the ground with what I thought were combat boots as she walked. "N-n-no, Sudi is right." She stumbled a bit over the pronunciation, but righted herself. "It is m-m-more logical to simply g-g-go to the airp-port first."

Eliza, who had been quiet up until now, made a noise of discontent and squirmed. "Down?" I asked, looking to Ada, who shook her head.

"She's s-s-sleepy and scared," she answered. "Y-Y-You can't put her d-down, she'll c-cry, and if you d-don't sing, she'll c-cry. D-d-do you sing?"

"Not well," I replied, flushing.

"I don't do singing. Unless I'm in the shower, or trying to make ears bleed," offered Sudi. "Or just annoying you."

"Don't doubt it," I replied. "Ada? Do you?"

She bit her lip and shook her head so quickly she was a blur for a moment. I sighed and shifted Eliza so she sat closer against me. "Does she know the normal lullabies?"

"She w-w-won't know them in En-En-English. She'll g-g-get the t-t-tune, though."

I took a deep breath, held her a bit tighter, and began to sing, utterly embarrassed but totally unwilling to be holding a crying baby. "You are my sunshine, my only sunshine…you make me happy when skies are grey…you'll never know, dear, how much I love you, so please don't take my sunshine away."

It continued on that way, through "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star," "Rock-a-bye-baby," "Hush Little Baby," and ended on a repeat of "You Are My Sunshine" as we finally rounded the street to the airport. We were about halfway there when Eliza, who had been sleeping soundly, suddenly bolted awake. I almost dropped her. She was panicked, crying, reaching out to Ada.

"Ada! Ada! Sie kommen! Sie kommen! Monster! Monster!"

Sudi and I stared while Ada snatched Eliza up. "Wo? Wo sind sie?"

Eliza pointed to the airport viciously. "Dort! Dieses Gebäude! Die grosse!" Ada paled and clutched Eliza to her chest.

"M-m-m-monsters!" Ada said, stammer increasing as she panicked. "M-m-m-m-monsters in the a-a-airport! You c-c-can't go!"

"She can sense them?" asked Sudi, dumbfounded. "How?"

"It doesn't matter," I said. "Is she reliable?"

Ada nodded ferociously, Eliza bawling into her shirt. "Sh-sh-she says that th-th-th-they are l-l-l-large."

"Prop, we need to be on that plane. We don't have any money or any other way to get to Greece," Sudi pressed.

"Like you said, Andre's not going to leave us, we should hang back and make a plan to – "

I was interrupted as the airport exploded.

We were thrown to the ground in the shock; pieces of flaming metal rained down around us as we ran across the road and into the shallow thicket across from the large airfield. The control tower was burning, the main building in flames; the planes were still exploding across the tarmac, one fire setting off an explosion in the next plane, and that plane catching the next, like a series of deadly dominoes. Sudi danced about frantically brushing flames and ash off of his jacket, and Eliza and Ada cowered. I couldn't tear my eyes away from the airport and the burning chaos.

I was the only one of the four of us to see the giant figure rising from the center of the flame. It looked like a snake, sort of, long and scaly, but with wings and claws and gigantic teeth that could rip the head off of Godzilla. As if that wasn't enough, it reared its head back and let loose a long turret of fire into the sky. "Is that a dragon?" I breathed, my voice barely more than a whisper. Sudi and Ada both looked up in a horrifying mix of awe and sheer terror.

"It's a drakon," Ada said, and her voice was clear of her stammer, smooth as glass. "A creature from Greek mythology; most likely a drakon thespiakos, slain by the hero Menestratus; like the Nemean lion, vulnerable in the mouth and eyes." Sudi and I gaped for a moment, and she bit her lip. "I-I-I have a photographic m-m-memory," she stammered, "and I l-l-like mythol-l-logy."

"Fine by me," Sudi sighed, turning back to the drakon. "At least someone knows what the hell this even is."

"We have to kill it," I said, resisting the urge to just fall to my knees and give up. "It – It'll kill people, won't it? That thing?"

"Y-y-yes. It's already k-k-killed the p-people in there. It w-won't stop until it's de-dead." She cradled Eliza gently, rocking the little pink puffball of a toddler back and forth, trying to stop the tears pouring down the chubby face.

"So we have to kill it." I felt sick.

"I didn't sign up for this," Sudi blurted, and he sounded as ill as I felt at that moment. "I – I can't fight invincible flame-breathing dragons or whatever that thing is. It just blew up an airport, I think we're out of our league."

"We've been out of our league since this started," I choked out around the tightening in my throat. "I guess this means I'll die in a literal blaze of glory."

"Or a blaze of idiocy," Sudi snapped. "I, for one, never wanted to die by dragon."

"It's f-f-f-flying!" Ada suddenly hissed. "Get down! Get d-d-down!" She dragged us flat to the ground, our noses in the dirt.

"You German psycho!" groaned Sudi, squirming. "It can't see us!"

"It can smell you," she said, deadly serious. "How d-d-do you t-t-think it found the airp-p-port? I know what y-y-you are, I've kn-n-n-nown kids like you, not-normal k-k-kids, who got taken away b-b-by people in suits because they s-s-saw things and f-f-fought things. I wanted t-to go, wanted to get t-taken away, but Mr. Haufmann said that I w-w-wasn't one of them. You are. It knows. So g-get down, and maybe the earth will c-cover your scent."

Sudi blinked at her, and Eliza reached out and grabbed my hand with pudgy fingers. She held on tight, and I squeezed right back. Be brave for her, I thought. Do you want a little girl to die?

"We have to get up, Ada," I said, taking deep breaths. "W-we have to fight it. I have to," I added, seeing Sudi's disbelieving look. "You don't have to. It's not your quest or whatever. But there are gods, apparently, and my dad used to tell me that everything happens for a reason. Maybe this is why I'm here. To save these people. And I – I can't take the chance that that's not the reason." And I have to be strong. I have to make my mother love me. To make her proud of me. I swallowed hard. "When I say go, run fast back the way we came, towards town. It's over in the air field, exploding the planes – I'll go for it. Get to as safe a place as you can." I pulled away from the ground and Ada, sliding my fingers away from Eliza. "Now, go!"

"Prop – " cried Sudi, but I ignored him. I took off as fast as my legs would take me back across the road. The chain-link and barbed-wire fence was gone, torn away in one of the quakes that had ripped through the earth as the drakon slammed into the ground in the air field. It loomed ahead of me, bright and illuminated in fire. It breathed out a stream of flames and a line of three or four jets combusted, the force knocking me back a few steps. The ground shook, and metal flew out from the jets. A tiny piece caught my cheek, tearing the skin. I winced and tried to ignore the gush of warm blood against my skin.

I kept going forward, stupidly running towards my death. I yanked the kukri ungracefully out of their sheaths, barely remembering to hold them the right way. As I drew closer, I could feel the heat radiating off of the scales. What have I gotten myself into? My brain was screaming curses at me, my stomach was having convulsions, and I was sweaty and trembling, but I couldn't stop running forward, I couldn't get the image of little Eliza out of my head, and I…I wanted my mom to notice me. To be proud of me, her loser son. Dying in a suicidal fight against a drakon wasn't much of a way to go, but it was a way I was going to take, because if there was the slightest chance that I could save the people in that town, it was worth my life. It was, and it sort of shocked me that that was a bigger cause of my actions than gaining my mother's love.

I was almost on the drakon now, and its ferocious head was sweeping from side to side, nostrils flaring and belching smoke. It let out a shriek like metal on metal and rose into the air, swerving and diving down straight for me, jaws wide, flames and cruel, wickedly sharp teeth gleaming, coming for me. I braced my blades out in front of me and closed my eyes. Please, let this at least hurt it, I prayed, not sure who I was praying to. I was sweating from the heat, shaking, burning up –

A force collided with me from the side, knocking the wind out of me and rolling me about twenty meters away from where the drakon's jaws snapped shut on empty earth. I shoved myself up and whirled to face my attacker – and I was confronted with a disheveled and ashy Sudi, pushing himself up from the ground with a determined look on his face. "Dammit," he growled, "I don't leave my friends behind. Look out!" He snatched my arms and yanked me behind a fragment of wall, just in time to escape a wall of flames. "Listen, Ada told me everything she knows about drakons before we split – she and Eliza are headed back into the city, she knows a place where they should be safe. She said that it's vulnerable in the mouth, especially, and to avoid the eyes unless you were amazing at archery, because if you're off even a hair, all you'll do it annoy it."

"And that's exactly what we need," I panted.

"Exactly. So basically the outside is as strong as a nun's chastity belt – "

"What the hell?"

"I watch American television, so sue me! Anyway, it's strong, is the point, but the inside is like the chastity belt of a cheap prostit– "

"I don't know what shows you watch but you need to stop, seriously!" I hissed. "And please, for the love of god, or gods, figure out something to do! You're a son of Wisdom, do something…wisdom-y!"

"Wisdom-y? Seriously?" he asked, eyebrows threatening to disappear. The drakon gave a loud roar and another burst of flame burst past the wall. A few charred stone pieces crumbled onto our heads, and it stomped around a bit. "Wisdom-y. Working on it."

"Good. Work fast."

"What the hell, you need to put in effort too!"

"Sudi!"

"Okay, okay! Um, materials, materials, we have knives, we have flaming hunks of metal, we have my sexiness, we have…more flaming hunks of metal, we have…jet fuel tank, score!" he cheered. He nudged me and pointed to where a large barrel of something – apparently jet fuel – lay, untouched by the fire for the moment. "Dear god, another miracle, thank someone. It should've exploded by now. Careful when you touch it, it might kaboom."

"I'm touching it?"

"Hey, I thought of the plan, now it's your problem, okay?"

"God, fine. What do I need to do?"

"Just be your normal demigod-smelling-self. Go stand next to the jet fuel barrel and make a lot of noise. It'll come at you with the roar-ing and the fire-ing and the teeth-ing going on, and then you wait until it gets close enough, then run like the wind."

"When is close enough?" I asked as a roar echoed behind us that shook the ground. I tried not to wet myself in sheer terror at the thought that I was about to totally antagonize the source of that sound.

"Um, okay, the standard open-air burning point of jet fuel is about four hundred fifty nine degrees, but the autoignition point is considerably less, more like four hundred and ten. Either way, um, it's gonna get really hot, really fast, and you need to pull out as soon as you can. Like, when you know that that dragon drako whatever isn't going to pull out of the dive, go. Okay?"

I didn't answer; I just took off towards the barrel, waving my arms frantically and screaming until I went hoarse, jumping to and fro as I ran.

"You look like a jackass!" Sudi yelled at me, but I didn't really care; adrenaline was flooding my system, my nerves hyper-aware; as I turned back, I could see the drakon rising in a cloud of fire and smoke, rising up and then spiraling downwards with all the deadly grace of a crashing airplane. I gulped and ran faster until I was next to the barrel. I skirted it, mindful of explosion on contact, and looked up to see the drakon about five floors above me and closing fast. I winced, legs tight and ready to dash – it could still pull away, could still see me run, but it was getting awfully hot – and as it closed, I leaned sideways and took off in a sprint. I was halfway back to the wall when I heard a scream.

"ELIZA!"

I skidded backwards, eyes wide in horror as I spun. Everything was going in slow motion, some kind of horrific scene – Ada was splayed out on the ground behind a far-away shelter, and Eliza was running towards me, and the gas tank and the diving drakon were between us. I didn't even stop to think; I turned back, almost sliding in the dry dirt, and took off towards the barrel. I was vaguely aware of Sudi and Ada screaming, loud and high and terrified, but I was too focused on the little red face, wet with tears and sweat, streaked with grime, and the little hands reaching out to mine. I ran faster and harder than I ever had in my life before, praying harder than I could even imagine – oh please, let me win, let me win this race, I can't lose, oh please, Mother, please –

I passed through a wave of heat, like opening an oven door, and then I was past the barrel. I scooped up Eliza in my arms and dashed for the nearest cover, farther than the wall had been; Ada was kneeling beside it, arms open, face terrified, and I watched her expression contort into something worse as there was a shock impact against the ground – and then my world exploded on itself.

When I came to, I was trapped under a pile of rubble. I worked it off, rubbing away my aches as I sat up, my head spinning. The world was bleary for a few minutes before it righted itself. The ground looked as though it was a bomb testing site – I guess it sort of was. There was no sign of life from the far-off wall where Ada had been, and the wall where Sudi had been was collapsed. It had only been a few minutes; the dust was still floating down from the drakon's death, and the sky was still dark. A few fires still crackled merrily, and I realized that I didn't hear anything. No groaning, no cries for help, no pleadings – the drakon had killed everyone at the airport. Everyone.

Everyone – Eliza, I thought, and the breath rushed out of my lungs in a giant woosh. She wasn't in my arms, wasn't safe, wasn't –

My eyes caught on a scrap of pink hanging from the larger rubble heap about a yard away. Staggering to my feet, I fell to my knees again and began yanking at the rubble like a man possessed. I felt the stone tear at my fingers, felt my nails catching on edges, but I didn't care, because she could still be there, could still be alive – I could hear something faint, stirring, and I pulled away a boulder and there she was.

Her curls were covered in dust from the rocks, and her eyes were barely open. Her face was red with blood from a cut on her forehead, and her little forearm was at an odd angle, but she was alright otherwise. She looked up at me, squinting, and managed, of all things, a tiny little smile. "Schokolade," she said. Chocolate. "Mein freund." My friend. Her friend. I smiled and pressed a kiss to the hand I could reach. She winced. "Ow-wie," she announced.

"I know, baby, I know. Ow-wie. You'll be okay. We'll get you – oh, god."

I had finally pulled away enough of the rubble, and it wasn't her arm that hurt her most. A larger part of the building had collapsed in on her little legs, pinning them down. Blood was beginning to soak the bottom of her pink jacket.

"Ow-wie," she said again, softer. Her eyes were beginning to dim, and I fought to hold back tears.

"It's okay, it's okay, we'll get you safe, get you fixed, get you a doctor, it's okay." I kept saying it softly as I rocked back and forth, holding her hand as she squeezed my fingers. I petted her hair. "It's okay."

"Lullaby," she said, and her voice drew out the "u" as "oo," soft and sweet. This time tears did manage to escape, hot like fire across my cheeks.

"Okay, Eliza. Okay. Um. I – I…"

I didn't know what to sing, or what to say. This little girl, who I'd known for all of an hour, if that, was lying here dying a painful death because of me, because I'd been stupid enough to go after a drakon. Sure, my motives were noble, you know, one death saving the many, but…that had been when the death was mine. It was completely different when somebody else suffered in my place – I would trade with her in an instant, because that death was mine, not hers. She was supposed to live because I died, I was supposed to save her and the other children and people and animals in the city over the horizon. I was supposed to save her.

Instead, I got her killed.

I lost.

"Lullaby," she insisted again, fainter than before. "Lullaby, Schokolade, lullaby." Chocolate. That was my name to her, Chocolate. I swallowed down the bitterness and sadness in my throat and sung a song my father had sung to me when I was tiny and sleepy and just wanted to slip away.

"The sun has gone from the shining skies, bye, baby, bye. The dandelions have closed their eyes, bye, baby, bye. The stars are lighting their lamps to see, if babes and squirrels and birds and bees, are sound asleep as babes should be, bye, baby, bye…Bye, baby, bye…bye, baby…"

Her little hand was loose and getting cold in mine, and all I could do was curl up around it and cry. I felt a gentle hand on my back, and Sudi was pulling me into a warm, ashy hug, rocking me back and forth and muttering, "It's okay, Prop, it's okay. It's not your fault, it's okay."

"It's okay," I choked. "I told her that, I told her it would be okay."

Ada was there, sitting next to me, and I pulled her into the hug, and she hugged back tightly, trembling and crying silently into my shirt. We just sat there, covered in ash and dirt and grime, in a tight ball of sorrow and loss, next to the body of a little girl who never really understood. And the tune ran round and round again in my head…

Bye, baby, bye.

Bye, baby, bye.

Bye, baby…

Bye…

A/N

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Yeaaah.

I had to re-write this chapter about seven-eight times, not even kidding. It was really annoying, because it just refused to be portrayed correctly. -sigh- And there's a whole lot less of Ada, and horrible action, and y'know? I really am not that fond of it, but like hell am I re-writing it again, so here you are. -dead- Still sick, but going to Chicago tomorrow, and we leave at about 6:30 a.m. and come back sometime Sunday evening, so...no interwebz and no replies until then, unless you catch me before 6:30. :)

Hopefully I didn't make this chapter too horrible. -fingers crossed-