+ Fallacy, a 100themes Challenge +
Sarehptar

Theme: 27, Foreign
Characters: Avis, Akano Chi, Aotsuki Noyoru, Kibara Hanabira
Pairing: None
Warnings: Do NOT let this theme lull you into a false sense of security. It is not a humorous piece (on the whole.) It is also extremely important. Kharl makes a promise here that will be central to the Avis Rara arc in Cloaks. (It's important to many of the Fighter themes to come too...)
Need to Know Info: Will be continued as Theme #67, Horror. Hana is an important character but I'll introduce him later. (Last of my three Fighters.) Also, do pay attention to where I use "Kharl" and "Avis" at the end of this piece, it's somewhat important...
Title Provider: Kuroi Namida (Anna Tsuchiya)

黒い涙, 流す, 明日あすなんて来ないようにと
Shedding Black Tears, Crying out, Wishing Tonight that Tomorrow Never Comes

"What?" Avis could not quite hold back his incredulity.

Blinking his enormous blue eyes once, the Dragon Fighter turned to his taller partner with a cloudy pout. "Hana-chiyan, I stated our invitation clearly enough, right?" The boy's red ponytail bounced as he nodded his head (comically) in frustration.

The other fighter, a stoic blond Dragon, nodded reluctantly, pausing a long moment before sighing. "Maybe your voice annoyed him so much he couldn't pay attention to the words."

"Don't lie! My Costa Rrrrican accent is adorable…" Akano Chi grinned slyly. "The girls looveee it!"

"Akano-san…" Avis interrupted before the red-head had a chance to start up his 'attractiveness' rant again, "I simply didn't understand what you wanted of me."

"Rara-sensei," the boy batted his dark eyelashes, "it's not what I want… It's what you need!" He shook his head sadly, scarlet ponytail growing even more messy as it whipped back and forth. "You never have any fun. Look, Captain Tetheus is going out tonight on scouting duty," the boy was positively wiggling in joy, "and when the kitty's away, the mice will play!" Avis was growing more confused by the second. Talking to Akano Chi was like trying to hold an intelligent conversation with a parrot. A stupid parrot.

"Really Akano-san, I…"

"Idiot here is trying to ask if you'll come to the party the Fighters' Guild is throwing tonight." The blond Dragon looked as if he'd rather be anywhere else at the moment.

"Hey! I wasn't asking, I was insisting!"

"I'm quite sorry, but I will have to decline. There is a growing stack of unfinished reports on my desk and Lord Alfee—" The doctor was interrupted by a gale of malicious giggles.

"I don't think you'll have to worry about Mr. Anxiety tonight… Come second course of dinner, he's not going to be feeling so hot." The red-head mimed fainting, falling backward toward his taller partner—instead of catching him, the blond let him fall painfully onto the cobblestone pathway.

"You're going to poison Lord Alfeegi?!" Avis blanched, uncomprehending. No wonder the Dragons were always having so many problems: the officers had as much to fear from their fighters as any attacking demon!

"Don't act so surprised Rara-sensei," the red-head chirped as he picked himself up off the ground, "you were the one who gave me the idea after all!" The doctor blinked once, twice, and could not have been more taken aback. When had he suggested poisoning the White Dragon Officer?

"Don't you remember? When we were all alone in your office the other day, and you were sorting bottles. You said 'How did this one get in here?' and I asked what it was."

"…I said Sickness Enhancer." The Alchemist almost beat himself over the head. What had possessed him to tell a possibly mental, obviously mischievous boy how to get his superiors out of the way?!

"Bin-go!" Chi crowed. The blond ("Hana", if Avis remembered correctly) shook his head at his exuberant partner and made a move to walk away, only to be stopped by Chi's fist, buried in his freshly laundered shirt. "You'll come, won't you Rara-sensei? What's a party without a nurse?" There was a cheeky glint in Chi's blue eyes that did not vanish, even after the other Dragon Fighter delivered a solid blow over his head.

"Ow, that hurt!"

"I don't think—"

"Pleasseeeee? You said you're from far away, right? So you've got to come! You can see how we get down in Dusis!"

"Just say yes Rara-sensei, so we can get on with our lives," Hana growled, aubergine eyes flashing impatiently.

"I… I'll come," the doctor sighed finally. There was no use arguing with Akano Chi—the boy was like a brick wall.

- X – X – X -

"So, what are the rules again?" The doctor eyed the deck of playing cards with mistrust, and eyed the Fighters' headquarters with even more mistrust. The room was packed with groups of guards, mingling, drinking, and generally creating as much noise as possible.

"R-Rara-sensei, it's really simple…" Aotsuki Noyoru, resident Fighter-Faerie, stuttered. "It's a-all about the hands you play. If you win the hand, you're all right, but if you…" his nut-brown face colored awkwardly, "if you l-lose, you have to t-take off a piece of your c-clothing. The one who wins the hand gets to keep those c-clothes for the night."

"Why would anyone want to play a game like this?"

"Why wouldn't they?!" Chi beamed from his place across the table. His blue eyes glittered slyly, narrowing in delight. "You're not modest, are you, Rara-sensei? Because I've taken a liking to that shirt of yours—it'll look cute on me!"

"You'd have to defeat me to get it." Competitive nature sparked, the doctor's pale eyes slipped into a glare.

"You've never even played Poker! I'm gonna kick your ass up and down the block!"

- X – X – X -

"WHATTTT?!" the red-head howled, jumping off his seat cushion in utter shock. "That's it! YOU HAVE TO BE CHEATING!" Heart-patterned boxers were earning the exuberant Fighter more than a few strange stares. "No person could honestly get FIVE Royal Flushes in a row!" Avis grinned over the table, accepting the cursing Dragon's pair of black pants.

"You know," the Alchemist smiled, "I think I'm beginning to enjoy Dusis' idea of entertainment."

"That's easy for you to say," Hana growled out.

"Y-yeah!" Aotsuki moaned across the table, face an unhealthy russet red. "You still have almost all your c-clothes!" It had taken the doctor a round to figure out the rules, and he had ended up losing his shirt—to the blue-haired Faerie, who was wearing it and little else. Contentedly, Avis patted the veritable mountain of clothing piling up at his side.

"I'm telling you guys, he has to be cheating!"

"B-But when we checked the deck, all the cards a-added up."

"Maybe your shuffling is what screwed us over, Akano," the blond poked his blue-eyed partner roughly. Chi heaved a heavy sigh.

"I'll just bow out now, while I still have some shreds of dignity… I think I saw Shep smuggling in some Lefury' earlier." With that, the boy vanished into the milling crowds of fighters. Aotsuki shuffled the cards gently, and Avis vowed to himself that this time he wouldn't use magic to rearrange the deck.

- X – X – X -

"Whoo I got it!" The barely-clothed swordsman came skittering back to their table, a bottle of ominous-looking liquid trailing after.

"C-Chi-chan, you don't mean to…"

"Drink so much I forget that I spent the night half-naked with a group of men instead of a cute girl?"

"Pervert," Hana sighed.

"Ever had this stuff, Rara-sensei?" The boy waved the thick glass bottle invitingly in his direction.

"Erm, no." Even with the cork still intact, Avis could smell the heady reek of alcohol. Garfakcy usually kept every drop of liquor in the castle locked away, with the exception of the dinner wines (which, after several centuries, Kharl had developed immunity to.) The quiet, dark swill of the liquid in front of him seemed foreboding.

"You've got to try it! Dusis' Lefuryhelio is the finest drink you'll ever have."

"I really don't think so…" But the Dragon Fighter ignored him, procured tall mugs from seemingly nowhere and poured drinks for everyone. Kharl noticed that even though there were more than a few glasses, the bottle didn't look any less full.

"I won't let you leave tonight if you don't try it. Just a tiny bit!" the blue-eyed swordsman grinned brightly and maliciously.

"I can go if I try it?" Avis gave the glass a cursory stare, and it frothed in mock innocence at him. The doctor yielded finally, taking a stiff drink. He immediately felt the burning tingle of the alcohol, and the bitter aftertaste was not far behind. What amazed him was that the warmth of the drink did not subside. It continued to grow in his stomach until he swore even the tips of his fingers were full of a pleasant tingling. "Well..." he murmured, "this is an interesting feeling." He tentatively took another sip, doubly surprised to find the heat add up. "Does it always do this?" There was half-smile on his face that he was not aware of wearing, and heaviness to his eyes.

"You're kidding me…" The red-head leaned almost too close for comfort. "He's buzzed already." Hana reached to take Avis's glass away, and received a sharp slap on the hand from the doctor.

"A-Are you feeling all right R-Rara-sensei?" the grey-eyed Faerie questioned, concern evident in his gaze.

The words echoed a bit in his head before he could make sense of them. Of course he was feeling all right. Why wouldn't he be—was that his mouth moving? He wasn't talking out loud yet, but that was certainly his voice…

"No. I'm… I'm not all right. I hate this place! I don't want to be here!" The doctor downed the last of his glass without care, while the Alchemist watched helplessly, the beginnings of panic starting to spark. "I wouldn't even be here if it wasn't for him! God…" He slumped in his chair, pale eyes clouding over with sorrow and rage. "You don't know what it's like; you couldn't possibly know what it's like to be without him." Avis felt like crying; Kharl felt like slamming a hand over his mouth.

"H-Him who?" the navy blue-haired Fighter asked gently, easing the empty bottle (when had he gotten a hold of the bottle?) from the doctor's pale fingers.

"It's my fault," Kharl snarled, "what sort of fool am I? To let it happen…"

"What happened Rara-sensei?" Chi had sat down beside him, a serious expression slipping onto his face.

"I lost him. I lost my son." Avis dropped his head onto his folded arms, quite unable to stand the sudden flashes of pity in their eyes. He was not so drunk that he could miss them.

"Rara-sensei… I'm sorry." The purple-eyed Dragon laid a hand on his shoulder, light enough and stable enough to be comforting.

"He's going to come back… He's going to come back and raise hell in this castle. He won't be himself; I didn't want to know it! God, I didn't want to know… He's going to die, and he's going to kill so many people." Three pairs of colored eyes lit on him, confusion and worry shining sharply.

Sudden fear pounded inside him, driving away any part of the liquor warmth he could have enjoyed. Dragons were going to die by the hundreds—these little boys, so full of their dreams, so alive with hope and loyalty and idealism… Youkai were going to storm this palace and blot their lives out without sparing one thought about the creatures they were murdering. In cold blood, these boys' bodies were going to be torn apart, devoured, buried in some mass grave with not a word to mark their deaths.

A foreign feeling swept through his alcohol-numbed body then, almost painful in its raw and unbroken depth—concern pressed inside him, pounding in time with his heart. As much as he disliked them, he knew these creatures. He knew their hopes, had laughed with them… Three pairs of eyes stared into his own, and the care that softened them burned heavily inside him.

"I won't let…" he stumbled over the words, so muffled by his bare arms that all three Fighters had to lean closer. "I'll protect you all."

"That," Chi leaned onto the table and smiled gently at him, "makes me happy."

Theme 28: Sorrow
"Thank you," he murmurs into the taffeta of his master's cloak, and the cloth keeps the words half in and half out of his mouth.