Whoo! End of Chapter 7! Yeah!

...Okay, going to go back to killing Ari now while I wait for Tea to send those two parts of Chapter 8 back...

"'Morning, beautiful." -Kairi

"Move it!" I yelled, turning and blasting the Behemoth with a Demon Fang. Luke, Asch, and Guy followed up with Demon Fist (and another Demon Fang in Guy's case), while Tear started singing the first hymn again.

"Silver Shot!" Natalia cried, finally pulling off the strike arte Dark had been teaching her. Dark unleashed the same arte, and a final, hyperresonance-enhanced Demon Fist from Luke in conjunction with Anise tossing a small bag of rafflesia pollen at it sent the Behemoth lumbering away from us again.

The rest of the group was now standing either on the bridge out of the marsh or was on the other side. Dark and Natalia were just barely on the bridge, Anise having stayed in the marsh simply because she couldn't throw that far.

Why we'd given her the bags of pollen, I didn't know.

What should have been a two-day expedition had, no thanks to the Behemoth, turned into a five-day hike, with Dark and the ligers running from one little upland to the next, waiting for us to catch up. The uplands each had anywhere from three to twenty rafflesia flowers on the edges, which was a good thing at night when we were sleeping, even if they smelled bad.

Then again, the entire marsh smelled bad, so I guess the rafflesia flowers were just the icing on the cake.

Once we were all on the safe ground on the other side of the bridge, we took a moment to catch our breath. "Is it gone?" Natalia asked. Jade looked ready to fall over. No wonder, given the kind of torture they'd put him through. I was healing him every night, but whatever they'd given him made it a slow, painful process. To make things worse, it was like there was another fon slot seal on him.

Jade had gone from asset to liability in the few hours that the Oracle Knights had gotten a hold of him, and none of us was happy about it.

"It won't... leave the marsh," Dark said, panting just as hard as the rest of us. He'd had to run back in and help get Natalia out of the mud. "Though... I'll admit... I'd never seen it... up until now... I guess... Koran and I... always went through... fast enough... to avoid it..."

Asch looked around once he caught his breath. "We're about four hours' walk from Belkend now... Do we keep going, or stop and wait until morning?" he asked. I looked up. Late afternoon... did we want to keep going after that?

"I say we vote. All for continuing on to Belkend tonight, hands up," Seth grumbled, very pointedly not putting his up.

Sadly for him, we actually had to make a count. With fourteen of us humans, it meant he needed at least seven people to keep their hands down. And that would be without asking the monsters, of which we had three.

I had my hand up. So did Tear, Selenia, Guy, Dark, Asch, Ion, and Miyagi.

Sorylle growled. "Sorylle and I vote stay here," Mieu said.

Jade did a bit of counting before scowling and looking at Twilight. The liger tilted his head to the side, considered for a bit, and then growled. Mieu made a sad noise and belly-flopped on Sorylle's head. Dark sighed. "Looks like we're walking, then. Jade, you and Natalia are in the worst shape. You two can ride the ligers. Let's go."

A few quiet groans later and some formation-shuffling, and we were off. No one really wanted to keep moving, to be honest. We were all filthy, and exhausted, and aching. But given the choice between a shower and a bed or waiting until morning to get to Belkend, I'd rather stay up late for the bed. The shower can be put off, but after four nights in the marsh and one outside it, I'd rather not have to go another night outside it.

Complaints were, thankfully, kept to a minimum. Anise had gotten tired enough at one point that I'd volunteered to give her a piggy-back ride, only for Dark to jump in and do it instead, since he'd been 'doing the easy job riding the ligers' the last few days. Needless to say, I hadn't argued.

We reached Belkend at about eight-thirty, well after dark. Asch dealt with the innkeeper while about half of us headed for the showers. I was among the half that didn't, instead opting to crash in a random room. Asch had also handed out keys at random, so I had no idea who would be in the other bed when I woke.

Not that I cared at that point.

*-.-*-.-*-.-*-.-*

Thump!

I groaned and rolled over, glaring at whoever had made that awful racket.

Oh.

I yawned, then forced a smile and a teasing tone. "'Morning, beautiful."

Inarticulate grumbling was my only response as Asch got up, climbed back into bed, and pulled the covers over his head of really messy red hair. I giggled, pulling the covers off and looking for a clock. Ah. Four a.m. Well, a bit earlier than usual, but whatever. Shower time.

We'd ended up in Belkend before. Twice. The first time, it had been an accident. The second time was more for Sync's benefit than anything else. That was also where I'd met Rialle, while trying and failing to find the green-haired teen I'd misplaced. Asch had, reluctantly, agreed to that second visit. So I'd been in this inn before, and thankfully didn't have to wake someone up to ask directions to the shower.

Once cleaned, I noted that a basket had been commandeered by the others, and I smirked, tossing my clothes in as well before pulling on my old black pants and green strapless top. I was walking around barefoot, but at that moment, I didn't care. I headed out into the inn's common room, sat down, dropped my bag, and pulled out my sketchbook, doodling for a little bit. I was using light from one of the only few lamps, and I was busy drawing, so I didn't see when I attracted company.

"That girl with the vines kinda looks like my sister."

I glanced up and frowned. The girl in front of me had blonde hair, and blue eyes, and a very childish face. She noticed I was looking at her and grinned. "Hi! I'm Bela!"

I smiled, realizing why she looked familiar all of a sudden. "Ah. You're the one Rialle was visiting when I first met her."

Bela gave me a curious look. "You know Ria?"

I nodded. "Yeah. She's a Fon Master Guardian, right?" Bela nodded happily. "She actually helped us out just a couple weeks ago, in addition to a rather long conversation about troublesome siblings a few months short of a year ago."

Bela rolled her eyes, but giggled. "I'm glad she's making friends! Mom'll probably be glad, too! But I should go get the laundry now instead of chatting. Okay? But we should talk later."

I raised an eyebrow. "How old are you?"

Bela grinned. "Ria's my younger twin sister." She then skipped off, cheerful as could be. I couldn't help but laugh as I watched her go.

It was about an hour later when someone new walked into the lobby.

"Hey Luke," I greeted the redhead after just a glance up. Luke stopped.

"How do you know I'm not Asch?" he asked. I smirked.

"Because one, Asch woke me up after rolling out of bed onto the floor this morning and that bed-head would have taken him a while to brush out. Two, Asch is not a morning person, and it's not even six yet. Ergo, you're Luke."

I got no response after that, no verbal response at least. Luke wandered over, sat next to me, and watched over my shoulder as I colored in the picture in front of me.

It had gone from being just a girl who looked like Rialle to being a group of eight girls. Luke looked at the picture oddly.

"That's really good... although it's also really confusing looking," Luke said. I smiled.

"Thanks. I've been working on it for about two hours now," I admitted. I shifted the sketchbook slightly. "See, my friends and I, despite the elemental setup for Energies, devised our own setup for a story we were doing." Well, actually, a roleplay, but who cared? Luke looked interested. "There were a total of sixteen elements."

"Sounds kinda complicated."

I shrugged. "Well... There were five to begin with. Water, Fire, Earth, Air, and Spirit. Then we added Light and Darkness. Then Ice, then Lightning... That was about when we set up the Basic-Complex system. The Mundane-Divine part wasn't implemented until later... Anyway!" I looked down at the girls again. "We decided that Water, Fire, Earth, Wind, Light, and Shadow were the Basic elements. Ice was aligned with Water, Spirit with Shadow, and Lightning with Light, originally. Then Sarah threw in Space and Time, which got their own level, so now we had eight Basic elements..."

Luke's eyes widened. "Oh!" He pointed to a girl with long white hair. "So, that girl's Water..." Then the one that looked like Rialle. "Earth." A short-haired woman with a harsh expression. "Fire." Another girl with long hair and a kind of ditzy expression. "Wind?" I nodded, then pointed to a girl that looked like Bela.

"She's Light and Sound." I didn't mention that we'd added that after playing Tales of the Abyss, just pointed to a black-haired woman with violet eyes. "Shadow and Mind." A girl who looked kinda like a brown-haired Natalia. "Spirit and Luna." A woman who looked an awful lot like me, except with copper-streaked gold hair, rather than my orange-ish. "Space and Time."

Luke gave me a curious look. "What are the other four elements? You mentioned Water and Ice..."

"Earth and Metal, Fire and Dragon, and Wind and Lightning."

Luke hummed and sat down to watch me finish the drawing.

Jade was the next one up, followed by Tear, then Seth, then Flick, and Ion. I looked up and raised an eyebrow.

"So who ended up sharing with whom? I know I'm in the same room as Asch..."

"I ended up sharing with Dark," Luke said, apparently having decided that watching me color in my picture was the most interesting thing he could have possibly been doing. Jade sighed.

"I shared with Anise," he said, not sounding amused.

"Natalia," Tear said simply, sitting down across from me. Seth and Flick found a couch and took it.

"I was with Miyagi. Seth got dumped with Ion, which leaves Guy and Selenia. Yeowch. Doubt Guy appreciated that," Flick said. I smirked a bit, then frowned.

"What about the monsters?"

"All three of them were in our room," Luke said. "I had Mieu sleeping on my head when I woke up and I tripped over Twilight trying to get to the bathroom this morning."

I laughed at that one. "Nice..."

Ion finally stopped staring at me and walked over to look at the open sketchbook in my hands. He frowned upon seeing the drawing.

"Isn't that brunette Rialle?" he asked. I hesitated a moment before shrugging.

"Eh. I wasn't really paying attention," I lied. "If it looks like her, it's probably because I just met her sister."

"She has a sister?" Seth asked. I smiled.

"An older fraternal twin sister, to be exact. Who works here on the cleaning staff."

"That's disturbing," Jade admitted. I shrugged. It was Bela. I'd decided a while ago to stop questioning those two.

I sighed, deciding that I was done for the time being. Well, it wasn't like the whole picture wasn't colored in. I just wasn't done with the shading yet. I stood up, wandering off toward the room I'd slept in.

"Now what are you doing?" Luke asked. I shrugged.

"Rialle gave us something while we were in Daath. It ended up in my wing pack. I thought now would be a good time to look at it," I said. Well, that wasn't completely the truth, but... oh well.

I'd managed to get the book without waking Asch up and was just heading back when Natalia stepped out of her room. Well. It took me a moment to realize it was Natalia. But once I'd placed that blonde hair, I smiled.

"Good morning."

Natalia squeaked, turned to look at me, and then dashed back into her room. I frowned, sighing and stepping over to the door to knock on it. "Natalia?"

"I'm changing back out of it!" her high voice came from the other side of the door. I rolled my eyes.

"You looked fine. Stunning, really."

There was no response for a moment. Then she opened the door a little. "You're not just joking with me, are you?"

I smirked, pushing the door a little more open and looking over the outfit again. It had definitely been Noir's idea. It was a short dress, with off-the-shoulder long, loose sleeves. Sea green ribbon had been stitched as lining along the edges, including the diamond-shaped cut-out that framed her belly button. White frost designs seemed to reach up from the ends of the sleeves and the hem of the dress. White stockings and simple sea-green mid-calf-high boots finished it off...

The thing that was probably driving Natalia nuts was the fact that one side of the dress stopped just above mid-thigh, and while the other dipped nearly to her knee, that side had a split all the way up to her hip.

I smiled and nodded. No, it wasn't very suitable for a princess, but it really was a good look for her. "You look beautiful, Natalia. Come on. I'm taking this to Jade," I said, holding up the book in my hands. "It's in Ancient Ispanian. I can't read it."

She nodded and followed me. By this point, it seemed that Anise, Dark, and Guy had seen fit to get up. Anise and Dark were the first two to notice what Natalia was wearing, and while the latter's expression was definitely amusing, Anise's comment a moment later distracted me.

"Whoa, Natalia! Oh man, I wish I had a dress like that!"

Natalia squeaked behind me, and I grinned. "Sorry, Anise. You're a bit young to be wearing cocktail dresses yet." Anise made a face, and I stepped over to Jade, handing over the book. "Here. I didn't realize this was in Ancient Ispanian."

Jade finally managed to tear his eyes away from the girl behind me, and he nodded smartly as if I hadn't just subtly spared him the humiliation of Anise catching him staring.

"Dark...? Do you not like it...?"

Dark's mouth finally snapped shut, and he stood rather abruptly and walked out. I was caught somewhere between laughing at the poor guy and going after him.

"Don't worry, Natalia. You just caught him off-guard," Jade said.

*She certainly got you off guard.*

*Shush.*

*Maybe I should talk York into making one in purple for Cantabile?*

*Kairi...*

I laughed, turning and heading after Dark, heedless of my bare feet.

Fun Fact: Natalia's new dress is somewhat based on Norma's from Tales of Legendia.