Chapter 6: Friends

After she had calmed down a bit Raine was able to tell her what happened. Apparently he and Lloyd had captured some members of the Heralds in Meltokio, but more had gone on to a different location: the old human ranch near Iselia. After they were all in chains, Emil went to Iselia itself to send a message to Sheena and let her know about their success. He stopped to pay Raine a courtesy visit and the moment she saw him she asked why he wasn't home with Marta.

"I don't believe I've ever heard your father curse since our journey—and only when he was in Ratatosk Mode. I told him I sent the antidote off yesterday and that you were safe in Mizuho with Sheena. He ran outside to summon his simurgh, and the moment it landed he jumped on its back. They took off just a few minutes before you came in."

Marille didn't say anything else but she went out the door, her face conveying to everyone that she wanted nothing more than to be alone. However, Raine followed her into the garden out back.

"Don't worry about your mother. The Mizuho ninja left right away the minute I gave it to him. It does concern me, though..."

She looked up at the woman. "What does?"

"Foxweed is extremely rare and very difficult to distill into a form as potent as the one used on Marta. Whoever did it had to either be very wealthy or very patient to be able to get so much. There aren't many I know of who would gain anything by attacking her."

The Castagnier girl pulled the note from the attacker out of her pocket. "This could be the reason."

Raine took it and read the words. "It could. Well, she should be on her way to recovery by tomorrow. Do you mind if I keep this?"

Marille nodded, then shuffled her feet nervously. "I was also wondering if you could help me. Ever since I was little, Mom has needed to heal me all the time. There's something wrong right here and I have no clue what it is."

The half-elf didn't try to examine her, but instead crossed her arms and looked at Marille thoughtfully. "This sounds like a serious problem if you have to be healed repeatedly, but your father never mentioned it to me, which makes me think he's trying to hide it. Do you have any idea why he wants you to have an incurable injury?"

That thought had never crossed her mind. "I... I don't know. He's my father. He wouldn't want to hurt me."

"Exactly," Raine pointed out. "Which means whatever this is, it's good for you."

"Can you tell me what you think it may be?"

"Not without an examination, and I won't do it unless I have your father's permission. He very likely has a good reason for it and I'm not going to do anything behind his back."

One look told Marille there wasn't a chance she could convince her otherwise, so after a few more customary words she excused herself. At first she didn't pay any attention to where she was going, just following wherever her feet seemed to take her, but eventually she found herself climbing the steps leading to the Temple of Martel.

Just inside the entrance she stopped, not willing to go far without the Irving twins with her, but also not willing to ask them to come along. She stood there, wishing she was strong enough to make her way inward alone and knowing full well she was not. The musty smell of dust and stone filled her nostrils, giving her the impression that a creature of great understanding and power resided here.

"Why are you searching for me?" a gentle voice asked from nowhere.

Marille leaped back in alarm, looking around for the summon spirit but unable to see him. "Where are you?"

"You know that well enough," Verius almost chided. "Ordinarily I cannot speak to humans so well, but some part of Ratatosk is in you. It helps you understand my voice."

She looked down at the toes of her black boots. "Thank you for talking with me, but to be honest I don't even know why I'm here. I feel silly asking you to waste time on me when I have nothing to say and no reason that you should pay me any attention."

"Every person is significant to me and I am incapable of wasting time. All matters of the heart are important, which is why you can hear me. Yours is quite heavy."

"Is she going to be alright?" she burst out. "Can you tell me if my mother will get the antidote in time?"

Verius remained silent and Marille dropped to her knees. Memories from her younger years rushed through her mind: all of them together and so happy. But when was the last time her father had a private conversation just with her? When had he taken her along for a ride on Valour, his simurgh? Or helped her practice sword fighting?

"Even when Mom is cured, Dad won't stay. Not for long. He just doesn't seem to care enough. I want to have a relationship with him, but how can I love someone I don't even know?!"

The summon spirit's voice echoed in her head, "I see those things you keep close to your heart, but I can see no attempt on your part to breach the gap you speak of. Is none of this your fault? Take care that you are not deceived."

The statement drew her up short and she knelt there on the floor, dumbfounded. "But...what about his keeping me at home all the time? And never telling me what this stupid infection or whatever is all about? He doesn't trust me."

"Unfortunately many mistake protection for oppression. You are a child. That is natural. But you ought to learn the difference before you are much older."

Those words from anyone else would have riled Marille, but from Verius they were neither condescending or pitying. He meant them the way they sounded: as a fact of life.

"Your father has been giving you space, hoping you would go to him when you were ready and not realizing you needed him to come to you."

Verius made the problem seem so simple, so easily solved, but where could she start? She didn't even know how to approach her father, much less what to say that would express everything she'd been holding inside so long. It seemed silly to ask the summon spirit for advice. He was simply reading her heart. She shouldn't ask for more than that. This was a problem she ought to be able to fix if she could just see her father alone for a few minutes...but she dreaded the encounter in a way she couldn't explain.

Marille inwardly felt Verius give a deep sigh. "Ah, I understand. You cannot be truly honest with him until you are honest with yourself. Why do you feel his legacy to be such a burden on your own shoulders?"

Her face burned with sudden shame and she was glad Verius was invisible so that she would not be forced to meet his eyes. She said nothing, but the answer leaped into her thoughts so forcefully that he couldn't avoid hearing it.

"What makes you think of yourself as weak?"

"It's true," she muttered around the lump in her throat, staring straight down at the floor.

Remembering her mother lying helpless back in Luin choked her up, but now when it came to this, of all things, she couldn't keep the tears back any longer. Several teardrops left salty trails down her nose and dripped onto the stone as visions flashed in front of her eyes: Sasha reprimanding her for being lazy; Mom telling her about the weapons in the attic; the bear nearly killing her after she failed to make a pact with it; falling into the river on the way to Mizuho; standing in the entrance to this temple and knowing she couldn't proceed...

"I can't get any stronger." Maybe her skills with the sword had improved over the last two years, but her strength hadn't. Whatever plateau she'd reached, it didn't appear to go any higher.

The summon spirit's voice took on a reasoning tone. "Are you—"

"Do you think I'm stupid?!" she shouted, her voice echoing along the corridor. "Maybe I can't make pacts with monsters, but I've always been able to sense the strength of my opponents and compare it to my own. I took down a harpy years ago and I took down another on my way here. The difference between us hasn't changed even though by all counts it ought to have. Tell me I just imagined that."

There was no reply. The only sound was the muffled splashing of more tears.

"I can never be like him. I'm just a failure."

The murmur of Verius's voice drew her back to the present. "There is nothing I can say that will heal this wound you have been carrying. Only your father can do that. But I can give you some small level of comfort. It is not the weakness you are so afraid of, but his disapproval when he learns of it. Consider that, Marille, and do not assume that he has ever compared you to himself. That is all I shall say on this."

The Castagnier girl rubbed away the tear streaks and sat up, wishing in a way that she hadn't come. The truth could be painful, and this was someone it was impossible to lie to. There was such a thing as understanding a person too well, and it made her more than a little uncomfortable.

She glanced out the entryway, noticing the sun had already drifted halfway to the horizon. Had she really been out for over two hours? It had only seemed a little while. The others might be worrying by now. She was glad to have some excuse to leave.

"I have to go. I won't be able to hear you once I leave this temple, will I?"

"Unlikely. You are very attuned here, whereas the moment you step through that door your mind grows distant and you lose any ability to hear my voice. But there is one final matter I wish to inform you of. I sense a shadow over your heart. A spell has been laid upon you to make you forget something."

"A spell?" She thought for a moment before it came to her. "The kidnapping! That man must have done it. Can you remove it?"

"For the daughter of Ratatosk, I will. But it has been years since the spell was cast. It will take a little time to unravel. Be aware that it may stir up other faded memories in the process. Are you certain this is what you wish?"

"Yes," Marille said confidently.

"Very well. It is done. Remember, I am always with you."

She felt no different and would have asked about it, but somehow she knew he wouldn't answer. Taking a deep breath that filled her nose again with the odor of dank stone and musty corridors, she stepped back out into the sunshine.

Marille has gained the title Insecure
Self-explanatory.

On her return, no mention was made of the blotchy color of her face (for which she was very grateful), and they didn't press her for details when she told them who she'd been speaking with. She was only willing to share a few of the things she learned, namely the spell.

Raine invited them to stay the night, saying it was too late for them to get far before they would have to make camp. The twins could sleep in Genis's old room and Marille could take Raine's bed. They tried to refuse, but she was so persistent that they finally gave in on the condition that the guests make supper.

While Marille was helping to slice peppers and cucumbers, a blank look passed over her face and she stood frozen in the middle of the kitchen. Geo stepped back and accidentally bumped into her, but she didn't appear to notice. Her mind was elsewhere...

Marille couldn't say a word. Her voice seemed to be completely gone even though she was screaming in her head. The ropes tying her to the tree loosened and she fell face-first onto the damp ground, only to be propped against the trunk by the ninja who had come out of the darkness.

Genji took something from his belt and pointed it skyward. A flare burst overhead, the afterglow remaining there for several minutes, and long before it faded away Valour landed in the nearby clearing. Her parents dismounted from the simurgh and ran over, holding her tight and fretting over her until seven other ninjas arrived along with Lloyd and Sheena.

"What I wouldn't give to have a monster that could carry me whenever I wanted," the leader of Mizuho said to Emil, panting. "We would have found her in a matter of hours otherwise. What happened?"

"I crossed their trail less than an hour ago," Genji informed her. He was drenched from head to toe in icy water and blood seeped from a wound on his arm, evidence of a fight. "I was so busy trying to catch up that I didn't see him until he was on top of me. I defended myself, but we fell into the river and I stabbed him in the heart. I lost track of his body while I made my way to shore. I was careless in many ways, and for that I am more sorry than I can say."

She sighed. "Now there's no telling if he was working alone or even why he would kidnap a little girl."

Lloyd placed a hand on his wife's shoulder. "She's alive and he's dead. I think that's enough for now. How is Marille?"

Emil was kneeling beside Marta, who was rocking her daughter and humming. "She won't speak. It may be the shock of everything."

Looking back at the ninja who had rescued her, Lloyd indicated Marille. "Have you tried your skill on her?"

"I wanted to wait for permission, Lloyd-sama," he answered.

"You have it. See if you can find out anything."

Genji knelt down in front of Marille and took the glove off his right hand. He stared into her eyes, then reached up to touch her cheek, the tips of his fingers glowing slightly. After less than a minute he dropped his hand and the gleam faded.

"There are no memories. I can see nothing because she has nothing. To her, the last five days never happened." He turned to Sheena, frustrated. "I've never seen this before. I am not sure what that man did, but somehow her memories are missing."

Marille blinked. The twins and Raine were standing in front of her, all of them worried. "Hi, guys. Was I gone long?"

The boys gave each other a look that said they considered her officially crazy while Raine only appeared thoughtful.

"You do realize you completely zoned out, right?" Leo asked. "For two whole minutes."

"Sorry. I remembered something from a long time ago."

Geo pursed his lips. "That doesn't seem like your usual absent-minded stroll down memory lane. Are we missing something?"

She turned back to the cutting board and continued to slice the peppers. "Verius said I would remember things slowly. I guess that also means they'll be in pieces. I'll tell you what I saw over dinner."

Raine said nothing about it, and she continued her silent contemplation as they ate, though the twins had to share the version of the story they'd heard and added half a dozen theories about who the kidnapper was and why he'd gone after Marille. She wasn't overly impressed with their imaginations. Every other theory seemed to hinge on the idea that Marille herself was mistaken for a desirable princess whose marriage to the dastardly fiend would bring about his rise to nobility—or variations of that.

After the dishes were done and the boys in their room, Raine set up a cot in her own room.

"The bed is all yours. I could sleep anywhere," she reassured her guest. "Before he left to marry Sierra, Genis often found me sleeping at my desk. He always griped at me about it, but I don't remember ever lacking a good night's sleep."

Once the lantern was out Marille thought she would get some rest, but Raine finally spoke the thoughts she'd been keeping to herself all evening. "It may not have been a good idea to have Verius remove that seal today."

"But he said it was blocking my memories. That's bad, isn't it?"

"I didn't say it wasn't a good idea. I just said it may not have been a good idea today," the half-elf specified. "I get the feeling you're not fully prepared to face what you're about to find. It might have been better to wait until you had someone like your mother or father there to walk you through anything that could be painful or confusing."

The embarrassment of being too impulsive came over her and she was glad there was no light to show the flush creeping up her neck. "Well, it's too late now. I'll just have to deal with it on my own."

Raine's sigh was all too audible. "I remember thinking that once. It took me years to realize I couldn't. Good night, Marille."

The snoring of her companions could be heard very clearly through the wall, but it hardly bothered her since her thoughts were too occupied with everything that had happened that day. Just as sleep seemed as far away as dawn, an image of something familiar filled her mind and she was whisked into another memory.

A/N: Yes, I know Genis is supposed to be completely head-over-heels for Presea, but in reality people change. To me it never appeared to be anything more than puppy love, which is easily overshadowed by the real thing or dampened by simple maturity. Their relationship is cute, yes, but not too realistic. I always fancied he'd find a nice half-elf lass and settle down.