Filling In The Blanks
Disclaimer: I don't own Final Fantasy IX or any of its characters.
A/N: MAN! Where have I been?! Thank you to the guest reviewer a few days ago that reminded me that I left you guys off at a terrible stopping point! College is kicking my ass this month :P
If that ever happens again, feel free to spam me, I will not be offended
Chapter 96: Blur
The best way to describe how he felt was strange, even in his tangled mind.
Fuzzy.
He felt fuzzy, like he wasn't fully out of a haze, but something in the outside world was bothering him, even though he couldn't quite open his eyes and blink them into focus to see what it was.
His body felt fuzzy in a way that his limbs wouldn't move when he ordered them, but stretched this way and that in their exhaustion when he didn't tell them to.
His mind felt fuzzy when he couldn't pull a thought into full focus, but memories and ideas were there just out of his reach. It was like he was sitting in one spot, reaching for something, but couldn't inch forward to grab ahold of it.
Finally, the sharp smell of sulfur brought him out of his daze and back into the real world. His sapphire eyes swiveled slowly across the room, and it took him twice as long as his assailants would have liked for him to realize where he was. The guards ordered to wake him up stepped back and off to the side.
He gasped suddenly when he saw Kuja before him, and he struggled against the bonds tying his hands together behind the chair and his feet to the legs even though his whole body protested.
The man let out an entirely high pitched laugh and put his hands on his hips, leaning forward towards the dreamer. "I have to say, I'm impressed."
Zidane bit down on his tongue to keep from saying anything.
"It's okay," Kuja continued with a mild wink, "I'll talk, you listen." He flipped his hand and brushed his long, sweeping hair behind his back. His tall black boots clicked on the floor of his balcony office ominously.
Zidane felt emotions knot in his gut – fear and anger mixed with anxiety and confusion – and maybe a little bit of something else.
"You and your little resistance friends have been a thorn in my side for a very long time. I'm honestly surprised, and grudgingly impressed, that you have lasted against my authority over the world for this long."
Zidane glared, finding his mouth too dry to slip in a sarcastic comment.
"And I am even more impressed with the display of unity in your battle against my entire army yesterday. I mean… until the end when they abandoned you."
The glare intensified.
The smirk suddenly melted off of Kuja's face into a permanent scowl. The man crossed his arms over his chest, the silk of his robe hanging down from his strong and pale arms. "But now it's over. I have won. You were one of the final hopes of the resistance, and without you well – the remaining beacon of hope won't really have any fight left in her, will she? And not like that dreamer mage was much of a threat to begin with! Maybe I was mistaken when I abducted him into my dream army."
Zidane growled at him, slowly finding his voice again.
"But anywho," Kuja laughed, though his expression did not get any merrier. "You have been the specific irritation in my rule for some time now, and I am just so delighted that it's finally over. And who would have thought – your best friend is the one to ultimately take you down!"
The genome's heart fell into his stomach and he leaned back in the chair. His chest rose and fell too fast, but he couldn't seem to calm himself down.
"Isn't it ironic? Don't you wonder what fuels her so hard if it isn't a spell?" his face turned wicked and his lips twitched up into a victorious smirk. "Your little display with the mirrors was so impressive, but alas, I didn't put any spell on my soldiers. I simply told them all of the friends and family they knew and loved for their whole dream experience were brutally murdered. Oops!"
He didn't answer the dark lord, not bothering to ask why he did it. Kuja played smart – he didn't use a spell because he probably knew there were plenty of ways to dispel the magic.
"That includes Elouise and her other friends… Vienna and Griffon were they?" he chuckled. "The anguish I saw in her that fueled her training and her smarts. She rose through the ranks like a shining star placed directly in my hands! All to avenge the friends that didn't even exist…"
Zidane's eyes slowly closed. Vienna and Griffon… Griffon was his best friend, he remembered that. He sorted through the memories of him and Blank – pre and post dream Alexandria – to find the one he wasn't sure if he was dead or alive, real or fake. Vienna was the sweetest girl he'd ever known, and when Elouise claimed that they had been killed, he could hardly stand it.
In some ways, this discussion was a relief. Kuja hadn't killed any more people he cared about… yet. But it was also upsetting. These good friends were never even real? His heart twisted in misperception and ache.
"Funny how that works, hmm?" he let out a low laugh.
"What do you want from me? Why don't you just kill me now that you have me?" Zidane croaked, fire ripping down his barren throat in dryness.
Kuja scratched his hair with a thought of irritated wonder. He looked like he truly didn't understand how the genome was missing the point. "Well I mean… I want to see if I can't provoke some new power from you that I have yet to learn from my other dreamers! I hate to admit it, Zidane Tribal, but you are far more powerful than any of my other dreamers – including the mage you broke out with," he laughed. "I'm surprised a trance hasn't started yet and you haven't broken free! I was almost hoping for it."
"I won't give you that satisfaction."
"It's your funeral."
Kuja waved in some guards and one dramatically pounded his fist into his open hand. Zidane narrowed his eyes, trying to look brave in the face of what he knew was going to be a lot of pain.
"I have an army to console," he informed the blonde. "I'll come back and check on you later! They're going to want to know where the rest of the pitiful little resistance is hiding… How quickly you answer may sway your… morale."
He slammed the doors behind him, and before Zidane could even turn his head forward again, he was hit with a heavy, armored fist in the side of the face.
"Are you going to tell us what we want to know quickly?" The first guard asked, sounding stressed and angered. The fight must have taken a lot out of these men too.
The genome rose his eyes proudly, and the tiniest of smirks appeared on his thin-pressed lips. He knew he was going to get a lot of hell the longer he held out. But he also knew he wouldn't do anymore to betray his team – his friends – and his family.
"I'll think about it."
She was given the echo screen to cure her silence, but Eiko did most of the healing without a word. They were nearly noiseless, sitting in the meeting house of Dali. Many citizens shuffled about with new clothing, comfortable and loose so as not to fester any wounds, and food that would fill them up and give them energy. Others moved with wash rags and water, trying to clean up what couldn't be healed as everyone sat, not wanting to admit defeat by showering off the feeling of losing an ally and a friend.
Dagger sat, staring straight forward, watching Blank's mangled arm slowly be stitched back up. The cure had taken away the infection, and had nearly closed the wound, but stitches were vital for someone who they just knew wouldn't be willing to take it easy for a couple of days. The raven only watched the redhead because he was sitting directly in front of her, his eyes seemingly staring past her as they checked his usually-hidden pupils with an unnatural light.
"She has a concussion," one of the townspeople was trying to speak to Steiner about Dagger, and the raven haired girl knew it, but she made no movements.
"She isn't going to sleep anyways," Steiner said, sounding probably as miserable as he felt. His tone was nearly whiny in all of his depression.
He was still being treated, his bloodied side being cleaned and disinfected between cures; Eiko tried hard to ignore the sight of blood, but she knew without being told that Dagger was in absolutely no condition to be casting white magic. Eiko was hardly over her elongated spurt of sobs from Mae when she found out about the abduction of Zidane.
Amarant was even trying to be helpful, carrying around towels and clean rags even though he hardly remembered to offer any to anybody. He was too stunned. How could something like this have happened?
Beatrix sat on a chair, sore and exhausted but unable to do anymore for herself. She nibbled on a piece of bread for a while, but then abandoned it to chew on her nails. She was stressed and nervous, and a wreck because of the events that passed, and too much swirled in her mind while not enough showed on her face. Hardly anyone but Steiner approached her. She knew that the worst part about this situation was that nobody but they knew. The rest of Tantalus would have to be informed that they lost their spunky friend again, and flashes of the troupe when they first joined the resistance flickered in her distraught mind. Not to mention the rest of the resistance, and all the people they had met, and their friends who had already left for Fossil Roo. Her heart ached, not only for the situation, but the people involved.
Steiner continued to hover over Dagger. He knew to keep a respectable distance if he wanted her to stop crying and screaming at him, but his charcoal eyes hardly ever left her unmoving figure. He ground his teeth and bit his lip as he shifted painfully in his seat, ignoring the gripes from the people trying to stitch him up that he was moving too much. The knight would open his mouth, as though finally ready to say something encouraging to the teenager, before it would gently shut again and he would look away. Half a second later, his eyes would be lingering on her strangely drooped form again.
Freya sat some ways away from everyone, Zidane's dropped dagger in her lap. She had raced back to retrieve it once they'd disappeared with the thief, knowing that his weapon would be important when they got him back. She was hopeful that it would happen, and knew that even if not everyone wanted to attempt to break into the castle, she would go anyways because there would always be a group that wanted to try. She felt connected to the weapon that she watched him train with, and loyally sling to his side every day, but past that, too many incoherent thoughts raced through her mind. She was healed, but her ears still swiveled at the memory of the sound of Dagger's screams, and Blank's sobs as he collapsed in her arms. The Bermecian felt like the pressure on her arms – heavier closer to her elbows, and one sharp point on her upper left arm from where his head fell into her– would never go away; Blank's broken form would be branded into her nerves forever. Suddenly, being away from Fratley seemed like a trivial thing; there was so much blood on the stone when she went back to retrieve the dagger alone, she nearly quaked with worry.
Blank was numb. There were a lot of emotions in his belly and in his mind and in his very nerves, but he couldn't quite pick one. He felt paralyzed where he sat, hardly feeling as they cracked and twisted his arm back into place. How had it even become so mangled again? He hardly blinked as they poked and prodded at his eyes, worried that he had suffered a bigger concussion than they all thought, when really his brain was on another subject. He recalled the way he had barked at Zidane, chewing him out before they'd left Dali just a day and a half ago… and at that thought, he nearly burst into tears all over again. Blank was tough. Blank never cried. And yet here he was, tears leaking silently down his face once more.
What had just happened? Surely this was a dream and he was going to wake up soon. He half expected Zidane to push open the doors and grin at them, scratch his neck and let out a sheepish laugh about how he had escaped and they really didn't need to worry about him. But that wasn't going to happen. The dreamers took him away and Kuja had him in his grasp – exactly where he had wanted the blonde for the past two years. They did need to worry about him. Blank's hands suddenly fisted tightly, and he saw Dagger's pupils twitch as they watched his movement. It was the first time she'd moved since she was sat down on the table in the first place. He would save Zidane. He wouldn't give up like he had when his best friend had been abducted before. No way in hell would Kuja stand in the way…
And that left Dagger once more.
She was shaken, and the sound of her own uncharacteristic wails still ripped through her mind, just as the sound would be imprinted in Freya's mind for a long time to come. She felt the need to fidget, but couldn't find the energy, and she wanted consolation from her knights, but watched as the two of them slowly fell apart in front of her as well. Zidane had impacted them more than any of them knew, and the disturbing way he'd disappeared with the dreamers into Kuja's impenetrable stronghold did absolutely nothing to help. She lifted a slow and heavy hand to her face to wipe down her stressed out features, truly at a loss as to what to do. If she lost Zidane now, she could never forgive herself. She wouldn't forgive herself.
Her stomach groaned as though she was ready for another round of tears, but she blinked, suddenly coming to life where she was sitting so that they would be fended away.
"We need a plan to get him back," she said after nearly twenty-four hours of silence.
They all lifted their heads to stare at her with concentrated looks.
"We need to make a plan fast and then go through with the plan," she stumbled over her words, feeling awkward and unable to speak. Her voice wavered like leaves in a breeze; she was close to incapable speech because of the threatening tears.
"We need to regroup," Amarant tossed out. "It sounds like we're going to need all of the help and strength we can get."
Nobody said anything, waiting for Dagger to challenge his opinion.
"I agree we're going to need help," she admitted quietly. "But if we're going to get help, then it needs to be done fast." Her eyes suddenly flickered between each of her team members, full of fear and danger and knowledge all at once. "If we wait too long trying to gather enough strength, he'll be dead before we even try anything." Her voice hiccupped only at the end of the sentence, and she bowed her head, missing the way that Blank shoved his aids away from him and tried to storm from the room. Eiko scrambled after him to insist he stay so he could be fixed up.
Dagger knew it would do no good to dwell. She knew why Steiner did what he did, but she didn't agree with his choice. However, she couldn't continue to be mad at the only allies she had left. The most important task they had in mind now was to get Zidane out.
She turned towards the door, straining her ears to hear the little girl yelling after the redhead. He was going to be a little harder to convince. Blank had lost Zidane once, nearly lost him again, and now lost him a second time. She couldn't afford to fail for herself, but more importantly, for Blank.
"How long until the airship gets here?" Amarant asked, dropping his pile of towels on a table. The moogle standing next to him nodded his thanks at the redhead's little amount of help; they could use any cooperation available at that point.
"They should be arriving soon," the mayor piped up and said. "Tawn returned and said that both parties seemed to get through the gates well enough; there was no trouble to report when he came back."
Dagger had made her small speech, and had lapsed back into silence, staring down with an unreadable expression on her face at her gloves. One was stained with the blood from Blank's wounds when they had first stopped on the way out of Alexandria, and she plucked at it shakily, shucking it like it was burning her. While the girl sat, pooled in her own thoughts, Beatrix too, hardly had a thought to spare. She sat staring forward, sometimes a distressed crease in her eyebrow, and other times she would bite her lip, reliving the conscious moments just before they left Alexandria.
Steiner glanced at Amarant and Freya – the only other two in the room who seemed to be paying attention. Then his attention moved back to the mayor, and he shrugged, "Thank you for everything you've been doing."
He shook his head. His eyes grew sad and he patted the side of his face with his handkerchief. This man was nothing like the trembling, terrible little puppet Steiner had met so many years ago when they first arrived in Dali, when he was so hesitant about assisting them, even though he dreamed night after night of helping to stop Kuja. "Thank you," he breathed out before he started to wring the cotton cloth. The design on it was faded, but Steiner guessed from the way the man clutched it that his daughter or wife had embroidered it for him some time ago. "Thank you," the man started again, "for saving my daughter."
Steiner ran his good hand through his hair, his eyes sweeping across their broken party. Though he would never say Mae was not worth the trouble that they'd gone through, he wished dearly that it had been as smooth as they had planned it in the beginning. Why couldn't Zidane have just run from the dreamers? And why couldn't the group have just left with Amarant and Eiko as soon as they found the girl? They probably would have had a better chance at safety…
"This is what we do," he said quietly, before excusing himself to get some fresh air.
Vivi had ultimately missed all of the drama in the meeting hall.
He had cooperated as soon as they got back, letting them scrub the blood off of him and check his vitals for any injuries. While he was exhausted, he was hardly injured; the cuts and bruises he suffered were healed almost instantly with Eiko's white magic.
She had stared at him, questions stabbing at him with her eyes, but she said nothing. So Vivi didn't offer up any consolation or knowledge of what happened either.
Now he was sitting on a thick bench of wood just outside the building and a little off to the side. His hat, still with a slumping hole in the middle, wavered in the breeze, and the air felt cool against his still-hot skin. His body pricked with numbness, and his eyes had dried.
He felt hollow. It was like something was taken away from him stronger than losing his voice, or even losing his ability to move. It was almost like he just didn't care anymore. His best friend was gone, dragged away because he had infuriated Kuja by breaking free and helping to further ignite the rebellion. Kuja should have been just as enraged at Vivi, and yet, here the mage was. Living, breathing, and entirely okay even after the battle that had ensued.
He didn't want to be a part of this, not until they found a way to bring Zidane back.
"Master Vivi," Steiner spoke softly, but the mage could hear the startled tone rising in his voice. "I didn't…" he trailed, and Vivi figured he didn't want to finish with 'I didn't remember you were still here'.
The mage looked up, feeling weak and helpless, and seeing Steiner reflecting his own feelings back at him, his emotions suddenly came spiraling back and hit him head on. His eyes watered and he couldn't see as he bowed his head and began to cry.
"Vivi," Steiner sighed with sorrow. He knelt down next to the mage.
"I would take Zidane's place," he sobbed. "I would do it, no matter how scary it would be. Because you guys need him more than I'm needed, and I would happy to be there if it meant saving him so he can help save you guys."
Steiner leaned back on his heels. Vivi was being so hard on himself, and he hadn't really expected the mage to say much of anything at all.
"I couldn't do anything to help," he continued, his cries muffling his words. "I should have ran after him. I should have been someone Kuja was looking for too, because then Zidane and I could have been together! I'm just a coward"
The ex-knight let him cry a little longer. He let them both feel the pain of what was happening – the pain of what they failed to do. And then he took in a deep breath and reached out to place a gentle hand on Vivi's shoulder. The skin on his hand was exposed, scarred and rough with callouses.
"You are not a corward," he started. "In fact, that was the bravest thing I have ever heard you say. Master Vivi, your words sounded like a true Alexandrian knight."
For a moment, his shoulders stopped shaking and he looked up, wiping the tears away from his golden eyes. "A knight?"
Steiner nodded, and the smallest of consoling smiles grew on his lips. "That's what we are, are we not? You say you are not strong and that you do nothing. But even the sincere willingness to change places with him, even though we know what he's going through cannot be anything good or painless, you would still go."
"But… that's not bravery. That's just wanting my friend safe."
The sad smile on Steiner's lips turned wry. "That's the same, in my book."
And then suddenly Vivi was standing up, and he leapt at Steiner, wrapping his arms around the knight's neck. He didn't know what came over him, but he was grateful just the same that the man was willing to return the hug.
"There will be a way to get him back. You'll be able to show Kuja what you've got."
And then Vivi's emotional burst subsided, but he didn't feel nearly as empty or alone as he had before.
"Beatrix," Freya said strongly, sliding off of the chair she was sitting on. She politely shooed away the moogle that had hopped over with another bout of potion, deciding she'd rather heal on her own the rest of the day, instead of using the drugs. The brunette hardly answered her, even when the Bermecian was standing in front of her drooped form. "Beatrix," she tried again, and finally walnut eyes rose to meet her. "A word?"
The knight's brown eyes searched Freya's guarded face for nearly a minute before she gave a slight nod and followed the woman outside. The two of them walked along the dirt path, passing Eiko fighting with Blank, and pretending not to notice Steiner leaned up against a building with his eyes closed, a stress line on his brow, Vivi huddled next to him in a tight ball, eyes downward.
As they continued to walk through the small town of Dali, mourning and silent even in the middle of the day, Beatrix's mind slowly melted away from her decisions in Alexandria to be met with the question about where they were going. The kids played quietly by their houses, and those who were working continued to shoot worried glances in the two women's direction. Word must have traveled fast.
"Where are you taking me, Freya?" she half-demanded, half-asked.
The rat-like creature didn't answer as she walked, her feet crunching into the gravel as they passed over the road. Beatrix brushed her large curls back over her shoulder and stared down at the ground, watching as their legs worked in unison to carry them.
"What is it that bothers you, Beatrix?"
She bit her lip. "Didn't you notice? Zidane is gone."
Freya shook her head, her own silver hair waving slightly with the movement. "I know. But it is not only that that shakes you."
She sighed, knowing that her friend had her pegged, "That's part of it."
"And the rest?"
The wind blew gently on the knight's hot face, and she turned to face it completely. It felt cool and relaxing; it was a greatly welcomed comfort after such an eventful, day-long mission. "Dagger was running for it," she started softly. The sound of uncertainty in her voice was foreign, and Freya didn't like it one bit. "Dagger was going in to save him. I had to make the decision to stop her – Cid told me that over everything else, I needed to keep Dagger alive." Her eyes suddenly jumped up, and she stared at the Bermecian with a bewildered expression. "Cid has always been able to count on me to follow orders – especially regarding Dagger's safety. But this time I…" she trailed, "I couldn't stop her. I hardly even tried."
Freya waited patiently with her long hands folded in front of her stomach, watching as the delicate façade Beatrix had put up, slowly crumbled. Her eyebrows knit together, and her eyes teared up like she was a lost child; her shoulder seemed stooped and her whole figure looked as though it could collapse at any moment. The bermecian tilted her head in encouragement.
"She could have been killed on the spot, no problem. Just because she was there didn't mean Zidane would have been saved. He's the most powerful of Kuja's dreamers, after all, and look what happened!" she cried out with a huff of air. "Dagger's silence restrained her from doing anything. I knew all of this. I knew it. But I didn't do anything to stop her. Not one damn thing!" Beatrix flung her fist into the air, hoping to make contact with something, but instead tugged at her limb harshly with the force and lack of something to stop it.
"Steiner was the one to stop her. The one she was already resentful towards because he was consistently suspicious about Zidane. The one she told she hated when it should have been me. Steiner shouldn't have gone through that! I should have been able to do it! It's my duty!" she was openly crying now, but the woman hardly noticed. She was silent for a moment while she gathered her thoughts; Freya stood perfectly still. "The way Dagger lights up when Zidane is around; the way that she laughs in his presence when she throws back her head and her cheeks seem to glow… I just… I couldn't be the one to take that away from her…"
A few minutes went by, and as Beatrix's emotions rose up and fell again into the quiet lull of shock and shame as before, she noticed the wind prickling goose bumps onto her skin. She turned her chestnut eyes towards the sky and watched as clouds bobbed over the sun. Another storm was coming.
"We will get him back," Freya told her quietly. She whirled around on her friend and stared at her blue complexion and equally cerulean eyes. "I do not doubt this."
"Dead or alive?" the brunette bit out, a crease growing hard and defined in her brow.
"You must not lose faith. Hope is what Dagger needs right now, and if you could not be the one to stop her from trying to save the person that makes her the happiest in this world, then you can opt to support the idea that he will be alive when we reach him."
Beatrix took in a long, slow breath. Freya was absolutely right. She flexed her sore fingers and could feel where her muscles protested from clutching the hilt of her sword too hard. She could feel the magic power in her flowing steadily again, unlike after they had come from the ice cavern. Her heart beat flooded her ears and rose into her throat. She was alive, and so long as she was, she could do something to help save the genome.
"I'm sorry."
"There is no need to apologize…" she nodded slowly, about to speak again when she watched the woman tear her attention away.
Beatrix's eyes flickered to the sky, staring at the same clouds that rolled carelessly where she saw a small speck. To any other spectator, it would have been a mere bird, tossed back into their mind until they had forgotten they'd seen it in the first place.
But the light hum from the Prima Vista was so trained into her mind (and so needed) that she immediately knew it was the airship.
Tantalus was back.
Something swelled in her stomach as she stared at the Bermecian with panic. They were going to get out of Dali and regroup so they could come back stronger and faster to save Zidane… but there was one obstacle standing in their way.
"Who's going to tell them about Zidane?"
They made a point to keep a few people inside. Blank hadn't even been told about the airship, and she really hoped to keep it that way until after she had broken the news to the crew.
She wrung at her gloves, making a creaking noise that didn't settle well in her ears. She was afraid; afraid of the heartbreak on their faces, and afraid of the anguished cries.
She hoped – no prayed – they were nothing like Blank and Dagger's wails when Zidane had been dragged off.
Beatrix fidgeted, uncomfortable. Freya and Amarant had been assigned to herd Eiko, Dagger, Blank and Vivi inside so that Steiner and she could tell Baku, Cinna and Zenero about what had happened in Alexandria. Her stomach churned at the thought.
The aircraft had landed a few minutes ago and both knights listened as the engines slowly began to shut down, and the whirl of energy in the engine came to a halt. A button must have been pushed as the ramp onto the airship groaned, slowly cranking down and thudding into the grass. Zenero came out first, looking tired from the run and sleepy from the ride. Baku must have pushed his two thieves hard to get them back this fast, and for once, Beatrix was thankful for the rough way he treated his boys.
The dog-creature blinked back his haze to make room for his confusion when he saw the two lone, solemn knights standing there. He puckered his lips and jerked his body around, looking to see if Cinna or Baku was behind him, and if they saw what he did.
Cinna was next to tromp down the ramp. He scratched his back and smacked his lips a little, and if the brunette didn't know he was almost as important to flying the airship as Baku, she would have guessed he had just woken up from a nap. The thief squinted his dark eyes as the two, before he threw up a lazy hand in a wave.
Beatrix nodded her head at him, and knew Steiner did the exact same. Cinna lowered his hand in hesitation, finally turning to search for Baku just as Zenero had. Finally, the leader strutted down the ramp, feeling pride and arrogance at getting the airship back to Dali as quickly as he had. He grinned when he saw his two teammates standing in the field, waiting for them.
"Look who's ready to go!" he gave a hearty laugh and twitched his lips, causing his beard to move. "You two must have gotten into a marital feud, because neither of you look happy to be standing here with each other!"
"Baku –" Steiner started, but Beatrix turned to him and put a gentle hand on his arm.
"I want to do this," she said in a low voice. His charcoal eyes caught her chestnut ones with distress.
"You don't have to."
"I do have to… I have to make up for what happened."
"Bea-"
She turned towards the small troupe again and stepped forward a little. Baku became jerky and serious, his eyebrows knitting together in a brooding suspicion. He neither got chastised nor a reaction from his previous statement, which must have meant…
He rushed forward to meet the woman.
"What happened?! Who –"
Her lip quivered before he could even ask, and the tears fell before she even realized she had started to choke up.
"Beatrix," his voice was harsh and far too rough.
"We didn't even realize he was left behind until it was too late."
"Who?!" he demanded, though something in the back of his mind began to creep forward like a prowling cat – he already knew the answer, and it was surfacing fast.
"There weren't enough of us to go up against the dreamers, and we'd been fighting for an hour at least."
"Beatrix!" he barked at her, grabbing her by the shoulders and shaking her a little. Steiner shot forward and peeled him off of her.
"Zidane!" she cried out, wincing as her own voice cracked, hating the way her yelp sounded so wretched.
Baku closed his eyes, letting out a breath that was too long. There was no reaction from him, but she didn't need it. She saw the hurt under his rowdy mask – and Cinna let out enough of a cursing scream for the two of them.
"Dammit!" he screamed again, falling to his knees. He bashed the grass with his fist, and then took his mace to it. "How could this happen?!"
"Zidane…?" Zenero let out; his voice was like a low rumble on the wind.
"I'm so sorry, Baku –"
"Why did this happen to him?! Again?!" Zenero squeezed his eyes shut and curled his back, pressing himself into a small ball as he squatted for just a moment, before rising again and spinning around in anger.
"You're lying!" Cinna yelled. "Why didn't anyone do anything?! Why can't any of the resistance members protect just this one person?! Why did you send us away?!" he groaned, feeling light headed. "We could have done something!"
"Shuck the fuck up, Cinna."
The thief stopped talking. He grabbed onto Zenero, who had fallen crying into the grass, as they stumbled over incoherent words together.
Baku opened his eyes, his brown orbs, freckled with green, locking onto Steiner, politely dodging the female knight as she tried to compose herself. "Where's Blank?"
"We haven't told him about the airship. We thought it was best we tell you before he did."
The Tantalus leader nodded his head, though spoke nothing about his opinion on the matter. "I'm going to –" he looked passed the two knights and spotted a dull brown figure against the emerald grass. Flaming red hair waved lightly in the wind, and even from so far away, Baku could tell that all of the fight had been taken out of the kid. He began moving towards the youngest member on his team.
It started as a slow, proud walk towards the redhead, who stood helpless in the grass, awaiting the lashing from his leader about failure. But then the world began to melt away around him – the sound of the workers diligently going about their tasks in the village just behind them disappeared, and the nearly sickening sight of tall grass and strange architecture was whisked away. It was just Blank's broken face, and soon Baku's knees began to wobble, and the superiority and respect he felt for himself over the years – growing as a leader and striving for people to take him more seriously – also began to wash away.
He reached Blank in what seemed like years.
"Baku," he choked out, his head shaking consistently and his shoulders quaking with unshed pressure. "I did it again. I couldn't save him. I couldn't stop it from happening again. I let him get taken again. I should have been the one to tell you… I-I don't even know what happened – he just… and then all of a sudden – and I knew it was his friends… and I couldn't… it was too fast… he… just…" Blank's sentences began being incoherent, even though the troupe leader could tell the thief was frustrated he couldn't just spit it out, and losing control all at once.
Suddenly Baku's gloved hands and armored arms shot out and around the redhead. He pulled him forcefully into a hug – something (he had to note) that Blank didn't hesitate for one second to return – and squeezed, unwilling to be mad at the redhead. While Zidane's fortune hadn't been particularly well, Baku knew he was lucky. He could have lost both of his boys both times the genome had been abducted, but here Blank still was.
He had gotten the chance to continually watch the thief grow – know how to swing effectively with his dagger, laugh again, control his anger, run with more efficiency so he didn't get so tired – all of that, because he had been lucky enough for Blank's safety.
"Don't you apologize for one damn thing," Baku hiccupped. He shook along with the teenager, both of them mourning for the continued loss of their good friend and teammate. "This wasn't your fault. I'll be damned if I let you fall back into believing it's your fault that he's gone." He pulled back, determination blossoming over his heart-breaking features. "We will get him back."
Blank's face crumpled, and he fell back into his boss as Cinna and Zenero finally staggered over to the duo, throwing themselves into the mix. Baku's arms retracted from the redhead as he herded all three of his boys close together so he could get a hand on all of them. He was supposed to defend them, and that sensation of failing to protect prickled under his skin as he squeezed them closer.
"I promise you guys. We will get him back."
A/N: Well what do you think? I hope I'm not having everyone too sappy and mopey, I just feel like this whole ordeal is a big enough blow to have all of their confidence and hard outter-shells sort of shatter for the time being. Let me know if you like it!
I can't wait to get passed all of this sad stuff
-zesty-
