Chapter 31 - Shattered Memories of a Broken Dream

"Slow your breathing. I said calm down. Relax, Rio."

"But mommy, it hurts."

"I know dear, but nothing is broken. You're just bruised, that's all." She checked around his throat. "That peg very nearly hit the back of your neck... well you almost fell neck-first into it, rather. And what would mama do if that happened, baby? Tell me. What would I do if that happened?"

The young boy named Rio sniffed. "B-buy a new peg?"

She smiled as she wiped away a tear, pulling her son to her tightly. He felt a jolt of pain as his mother's hand lovingly pat the point of injury and gave him a comforting kiss on the forehead. Somehow he managed to give her a bright smile full of straight, six-year old teeth. "That's my boy."

Oh no. She was giving him that look. The kind where after she'd ruffled his hair, she would just stare into his green eyes on the verge of tears. He wondered what his father was like. "Don't worry, mama, I'm not goin' no where."

"She finally smiled. "So, are you ready to get back to training?"

"Yeah! And someday, I'm gonna be a big, strong, Monk, just like you, mama!" The child hurriedly rushed to the platform of tile with wooden pegs at each corner of the stone squares, beholding a minor taste of the man he would become, several years in the future. But nothing could prepare him for the young woman he would grow up with and who would perpetually drive him insane.

*

"Aurai... Aurai! Aurai, where are you?" The tall woman swept back the silken sheets to reveal two fluffy pillows set in such a way to appear as a mischievous princess. "Hmm. Where, oh where can I find a little girl named Aurai? She's not in bed..." She began to walk away from the mattress, her robes sweeping above the floor. "Now where could that cute, little thing have gotten to... Maybe..." She spun around and dived to the floor, tossing back the duster sheet, smiling at the broad, toothy grin before her face. Lady Peorth reached out to grab her; Aurai quickly rolled away and dashed out the door. Peorth smiled and slid gracefully from the room after her. The spry young Aurai was making quick distance over the floor when she realized that Lady Peorth wasn't following her. Daddy was somewhere on the same floor. She knew this because Bradshaw and Peorth both called out "Stop!" in a loud, seemingly synchronized shout.

Aurai cursed herself beneath her breath then suddenly felt a peculiar familiarity. Then it dawned on her. "That was a double negative. So you cancelled each other out! Ha!" She kept running as the two looked at each other, admitting that she was right. Her laughter was far too cute for her own good as she snickered at them from over her shoulder. And then her foot missed the floor.

"Aurai! The stair...way."

She was indefinitely more surprised than either of them, bounding bottom-first, completely rolling through the landing and tumbling swiftly over the carpet that garnished the first floor stair before skidding to a halt at her mother's chair, staring at the ceiling far above. Todrea set her teacup on its saucer to smile down at her.

"Having fun, sweetie?"

Aurai rubbed her derriere as she stared at the modest white canopy of plaster. "I didn't do it on purpose."

"Not this time, huh?"

Sitting up, she stuck out her tongue. Footsteps depressed the carpet as blue tresses hid shorter sweeps of a darker hue as Bradshaw rubbed his forehead. "I'm too old for this kind of stuff."

Todrea raised an eyebrow from over her tea. "You're twenty-five."

Her husband laughed his response. "I know, but I feel about as old as Lady Peorth, here."

The tall woman swiped his shoulder. "Shame on you, Bradshaw! How atrocious. I know your parents taught you better manners than that!"

Across the table from Todrea sat a smiling Corboa whom was having quite a rigorous time suppressing her laughter at the King's expense while her son sat cross-legged next to Aurai.

"Are you awright? That looked like it hurt."

Aurai, resting her chin in her palms glanced over. "Yeah. I've done worse." She smiled. "Let's go outside! I wanna show you somethin' really cool!"

He smiled in return."Okay!" They ran to the door, the princess showing the monk-in-training out the door before Bradshaw called out, "Don't wander off too far!" He drew his voice to a whisper and turned to lady Peorth. "Make sure they stay out of trouble."

She smiled, gave a bow, and walked to the door as Aurai hustled Rio out. Corboa grinned and looked to Todrea with a wistful shine in her eyes. "That girl's getting bigger every day I see her."

"And stronger, too. Not so much physically as she's growing mentally. She's constantly practicing her spells... When she's not sleeping, eating or causing trouble, that is. But then again she tends to mesh magic with that, too."

"Yeah, she's a character. Rio might be able to beat her in an arm-wrestling contest. Maybe." Corboa took a long sip of her tea before she went began again. "You both realize that she will someday become stronger than either of you, right?"

Bradshaw placed a hand onto his wife's shoulder. "Stronger than the both of us combined, actually. It's not only because she is a Red Mage, but much more."

"I know. You told me when you met with Lord Cid, Marilyn, and everyone else at Burma more than six years ago." A silence hung in the air.

Corboa finally broke it once more. "Should we really be doing this? I mean, after what happened, to us, should we make them go through the very same hell we did? We put our lives on the line.

"They killed him. I would have died, too, if it weren't for that soldier. What was his name? He was an amazing shot. With the size of those pistols he used, I'm surprised they didn't rip his arms off. What was it? They had writing engraved along the shaft... I think it was... arian Falcon."

Eyes suddenly went alight with streaming magic; both the Mages spoke in unison: "Petro Rhine."

"Yes. That was it. Do you remember that day? The war had ended less than a year before... it was the same year you all met in Burma."

Todrea nodded. "The same year Aurai was born, a few months before the meet."

"I wasn't very far in my pregnancy... but I never cared for riding in airships, anyway. Yeah. We were stationed at a checkpoint, Chandor Island, with a fair-sized squadron on knights, checking traveling cargo ships for contraband and whatnot. It was rather boring. And I was about five or so months in. We were checking a passenger craft at the time when we came under heavy fire. It was easy enough to escape the ship before we discovered that several dozen armadas were swarming the island.

We never stood a chance. Their numbers were startling. Anyone who wasn't dead died in the warehouse, other than myself and a small handful of others. If we would have seen them around that corner..." Tears slid past her wrist as her palms smothered her eyes. Todrea placed a reassuring hand over her own. Gaining her composure she continued with puffy, red eyes. "They somehow reached the inner sanctums of the building--other than the evacuation dock. That's where we were going. We crossed a large open area and turned a corner when they ambushed us. It took a second for the hail of gunfire to take my husband away from me. I nearly fainted, crying; I welcomed death. I wasn't afraid until I heard a blast much louder than the rain that drenched my love. But it didn't hurt. I felt blood; it surprised me that it wasn't my own. Before I knew what had happened, at least thirty dead Debiddekkans surrounded me.

"That Petro man was pulling me to my feet, but I was reluctant to comply. He cleared a path to the stairway and when we finally reached the evac dock, a few soldiers on a higher catwalk shot at us and he was hit. I wasn't surprised when two shots from his pistols managed to decapitate the lot of them. I helped him into the room; he broke away from meas if I were makin' him uncomfortable. That man secured one of the evacs for me and pushed me inside. Almost all of the others were gone; another had malfunctioned and ruptured with the occupant still inside. You could tell from the smell of burning flesh.

"I didn't fully snap out of my daze until he pushed he into the evac, clinging to my shoulder and the inside of the doorway. His eyes were dark before they turned gold. He told me to survive and said some weird nonsense that, I assume, was probably a kind of ancient tongue. He leaned back and smeared red over the doorway and pressed a button to shut the door. I heard him slump to the floor--his spine was severed--and not long after, a big boom. And then, I was all alone. I thought about getting sick but ended up falling asleep. I woke up-"

"In Rasuria," Lady Peorth finished. "In case you were wondering, those weapons were found in the evac unit with you, removed, and shipped to his hometown."

Corboa looked up. "Did he have family there?"

"Yes. He left a wife who served at the school in Deyajin and a son a bit less than a year old. He's probably about Aurai's age." Peorth's face took on a morose appeal. "But... it's peculiar... His father was serving for about a year and was teaching new recruits months before--without leave. It's possible that she may have been unfaithful, or maybe our records are wrong; I am not sure. Lord Cid is looking into it, but that's all I know."

Todrea nodded slowly before her eyes suddenly shot wide. "Weren't you watching the kids?!"

A bright smile spread on Peorth's face. "Oh, you know them."

"That's why I'm worried."

*

"Hah! I win!"

"No fair!" He fumbled with his words. "Y, you cheated!"

She peered at him. "You used both hands, Rio."

He pouted and turned away, rubbing his arm. "What were you going to show me that was so cool?"

"Oh yeah," she giggled. "Almost forgot. Over-" she turned and saw the raven-haired ten-year-old boy whose teal-colored eyes she liked to look into walking by. Those eyes couldn't help but to make her smile. "Good morning, Brego!"

His reddening face made her smile more. "Good morning, Princess."

"Come over here. I'm showing Rio something really neat!" He was reluctant at first but eventually acceded.

The two boys exchanged greetings and then were told where to stand before her. A rod quite a fair length taller than herself Aurai pulled from a cylindrical sheath strapped to her back. The young girl took two big steps back, holding the rod out before herself, bowing deeply before falling into a stance. Quick as a flash thrust the tip forward and pulled back, pressing the wooden rod to her shin before swiping the bottom skyward and the top harshly from her left shoulder to her right; twirling it over the tips of her fingers ere she pulled above her right shoulder and dragged it down through the air to the dirt. The wood was up before the gout of dust as she slid backwards in a defensive posture, an open palm out with weapon drawn back, and pressed the staff into the ground, pushing off of it to land behind, shove the butt end into the earth beneath his ankle, and jam the lever down. Before he realized it, Rio was flat on his back, still in awe of Aurai's grace and fluid disarmament. Brego didn't repress his laughter as he applauded the girl who walked off with a confident smile on her face and her eyes closed.

"Oh, that is it!" The monk-in-training rushed to his feet and dashed towards her, aiming at the middle of her back, fully intending to tackle her to the dirt in repentance for knocking him down flat--"Oof!"--and he did just that.

*

Soft hands roused him from slumber as a melodic voice spoke to him: "Good morning, Prince Dyne."

He stared into her shining green eyes as they narrowed with her endearing smile. She made him beam. "Good morning, Annalina. Could you hand me my trousers, please?"

Her knowing grin widened. "Of course, sir."

"You're my friend. You know you don't have to call me 'sir,' right?"

She pulled an auburn-brown strand of hair that was more brown than auburn over her large ear. "I know. But I prefer to."

A grunt came from Dyne as he struggled with his pants beneath the bedsheets. "A quirk that I've always found pleasant, if not a bit nerve-wracking."

"Much like sleeping naked?"

He paused as he turned red beneath the white of his furry face and the lovely, year-younger retainer held a laugh beneath her breath before her continued to slide the fresh material up his long, powerful legs. The young prince thanked the Creator that they replaced his old mattress with one that better served his inclining vertical growth. As he thought about it, he realized that the back-wrenching thing had been with him since he'd been out of his bassinet. Now it lay in his younger brother's vacant room. Where could that trouble-maker of a sibling have gotten to for months, upon months, upon months on end? He'd stopped counting.

"Prince Dyne? Did I upset you?"

He blinked then looked to her, shaken from his thoughts. "Excuse me, I wasn't paying attention. What were you saying?"

"Oh, I was just about to invite you down to the breakfast table."

"Excellent. Did you make it?"

"Of course."

His smile grew wider. "Then it won't be short of spectacular." And his statement wasn't far from the truth by any means. A quick dash of love--'love' being an abstract term for 'salt'--and the meal was made nothing short of perfect. After wiping his mouth with his hankerchief, the prince exhaled with a pleased sigh. "So, Anna, what's on schedule for today?"

The young lady took up his plate from his desk, placing it onto a smaller table before pulling a large stack of papers from her leather sachel at her side and plopping them before him. "Paperwork."

"Holy hell! All this?! For what!?"

"Catering and such for the festival later in the month."

Dyne massaged his temples with a hopeless exhalation. "Oh. Wait... why isn't dad doing it?!"

She grinned. "He's got the bigger half. Ah," she paused, turning to grab a large box from a guard that had arrived just behind her. Dyne didn't notice until she slammed the box before him, papers spilling out over the others as his jaw fell low.

"You've gotta be kidding me..." He looked up at her. "Tell me this is a bad dream, Annie!"

She shook her head while stifling the grin trying to peal across her face. "Sorry, no can do. Besides, you promised to continue our fencing lessons today."

The tall mouseman slouching hopelessly in his chair feigned a sorrowful noise. "Right. I'm too damn nice." Another box full of documents was plopped onto his desk.

*

"You're doing very good. You may want to slow down just a bit so as not to lose control. Yeah, just like that. All right. Now, if I were to make a horizontal slash aimed along your shoulders, how would you strike me?"

"That's easy. I'd wait until you fell midway into your slash then make a thrust."

Dyne smiled. "That's what I thought you would say. And that's what most people who know how to weild a sword would say. An inexperienced fencer would've probably preferred to strike my left side but that would assuredly be suicide with assistance. However, were you to follow through with your assumption, with a simple flick of the wrist, I'd have your head off," he said with a placating smile. Nevertheless, she reassuringly stroked her neck as if to make sure it was still intact. Taking in his smile for a few moments longer, she pulled a loop of hair over her ear and raised her blade. "All right then, sir, what should I have said?"

He paused and glanced up at the hastily darkening sky. "Hm. Pressure dropped. Anyway, it would be advantageous to dodge my initial attack as well as my follow up which is sure to come, more than likely in a downward diagonal, like this-"

"Leaving your neck open for severing." The blade was cool on the warm against the nape of his neck.

Her tail gradually relaxed from its stiffened state as she relaxed against his chest, in his arms. It felt good. An eternity passed as he walked her through the steps of the ethereal exercise. Their synchronized movements were fluid and graceful. The blade moved freely yet of them, an extension of Space. Sword's polarity increasing with each Timely step taking, and the edge slitting air--speaking. Both their selves part of a whole--they are one--as sword sings and Time is nothing while blade baila with great fervor, rigorous movement spanning vast with spacious effervescence. And not more than five minutes after Dyne took her in his arms, the rain clouds gave way.

They eventually ran laughing into the training house after realizing how harshly the down-pour was falling. The edifice had been a place where they had camped less than a decade ago, eventfully venturing out to the grassy, flower-laden field in their pursuits as "great explorers."

They kept to separate ends of the room, backs to each other as they changed dress--red in the face and soaked to the gills. Annalina hesitated. Hesitation is error in fallible definition. She cautiously yet casually glanced over her shoulder at his broad, white-furred back soaked down like a cottony sheet--second skin--over defined, sleek muscle. Her small hand, absent of her mind, stroked down her neck and up along her sternum as she felt heated, looking farther down, not acknowledging her subtle cock of the head. Silver rustles and red makes a momentary glint before retracting--he smiled.

Glance turns away as she grabs a long sleeved, button shirt and pulls it o'er herself, the hem's edge hanging not far below the top of her thighs, her tail raising it just a bit. Her pensive fingertips rest at a single button and its contrary open stitch--that which was nearest to her chest. Yet she hesitated and silent stir her hands did rest, like his upon her shoulders. At this she released a sharp breath--his kind smile taken of her incisive ears in loving jest--and turned about with slight surprise where there met both pairs of their soul searching eyes and she fell into the comfort of his heated breast. Their lips met tenderly. They spoke their vows of brevitious laud between clenched teeth and hastened pants and fervorous shouts of jubilee as breasts pressed to chest, lips ran together like two rivers of flame converged through rain-slickened fields of heather, mindless of all and speaking the language of romance and slaver. In that space of finite infinity, there was there, and there they were--'lone with chakras lined--and that's all that mattered as breath came to breath and heart came to heart and root met root and their souls became one.

*

"Kaia... Kaia? Where did you go, sweetheart?"

When she touched his leg, he jumped. "Yes, father?"

Aeloh-aí relaxed and stroked the top of his eight-year old daughter's head. "Don't sneak up on me like that, baby."

She turned her head and said, "I'm sorry," with a broadening smile. A father's gentle touch caressed the back of her neck, leading her towards the doorway.

"Come along, honey. Let's go on outside. I wanna tell you something." She followed in mute. From the background she could hear her younger sister--to be at age five after the summer's peak--practicing the tea ceremony with their mother, Sön. Things were so quiet here. So calm. So peaceful. All of that would change over a shorter number of years than she would have initially believed--or at least preferred. The poor child seemed not any more prepared at the perpetual present than she was eleven years hence.

Salty spray tickled her face. The sun was beautiful. Waves kissed the shoreline with meager contact, retracting--such the tease. The sun was setting. Two years can change much.

*

Swiff swiff swiff swip swip swip swiff swiff swifff. Swip.

He looked up from the pair of boots at the older boy in his path. "Please move."

The boy smirked. "So, new kid, you're the wonder-boy that stopped a thief, huh? I heard you hurt him pretty bad."

Dais shot him a smirk of his own. "Yeah. I am. And I wonder why you care."

The boy began fuming while his friends--former victims--stifled snickers. The confident grin replastered itself on his misshapen face. "I also heard that it was a pretty lucky shot."

Before he could act without his mind, a boy about the same age as the antagonistic miscreant but with a better build, visage, and stride, walked up to him. "Hey, Rûke, relax. Leave the kid alone."

The barrel-skulled bully peered at the mediator. "You're not your dad, Vaars."

The fire in the eyes of the dojo-master's eleven-year old son grew when a soft, light chuckle interrupted his tightening fist. "Rûke. I did a bit more than..."--Dais looked up--"hurt him." He smiled complacently; in a disturbingly calm manner he hid the slowly rising fury within the depths of his eyes. He went on. "Would you like to know what I did to him?"

With a short pause of reluctance, his friends eventually nudged him, urging to ask what exactly had been done. He would regret his ascension.

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah, kid. I've heard plenty of weird stories. Nothin' scares me." Rûke confidently crossed his arms over his chest to prove his point.

Dais shrugged nonchalantly. "Okay. Well, he stole a woman's purse and a really big knife and must have been planning to use it on me but he never got a chance because I did--and this is the good part--" Golden flash.

Immediately rose the head of the broom, sweeping the boy's feet out from under him when suddenly, the broom's butt caught the gullet of his neck, right at his apex before a forceful thrust pinned him to the ground. The young boy's heel on the ruffian's stomach added insult to a lightning-quick injury.

Dais' smirk grew. "I've heard from a very smart man that the best way to know something is to"--his wrists twitched in one direction--"feel it." The boy cried out as the wood wrenched the flesh of his throat. "Do you feel it?" Dais said in a serene yet dominating voice. The boy's voice shook. Dais twist again. "Answer me. Do you feel it?"

Rûke stared, breath held and lower lip quivering, and not until he saw Dais' grip tighten did he squirm, crying out, "Yes! I felt it! Agh... that hurts...Stop. Why did you do that?!"

Dais leaned deeper. "Do you know it?"

Rûke's eyes were wide with fear. "What?"

The seven year old peered. "Hn. Of course you don't." His voice fell to a whisper as he lift his chin. "Do you wish to hear the sound he made? The sound when his neck broke?" Rûke wanted to say "no" but not a word came to his mouth, even as salty tears dripped past his lips. "It was a very distinct sound...hmm... I'm pretty sure that it sounded something like this!" he shouted in a light-voiced bellow, raising the broom for above his head. Golden flash.

Rûke's eyes went wide--his arms could work. Quickly he threw them around himself to protect against the strike. He cried out, waiting for it but hoping against Hope that this...this devil wouldn't be the death of him. But nothing. Silence.

Then CRACK.

Impact was made.

And he had no Hope anymore. Why would he ever depend on Hope for anything? It was so jumpy; so erratic. So flaky and unreliable. Yet, such things did not matter to a dead man. Oh well... It's one way to get out. He only wished he could've at least said: "Goodbye."

A few seconds later, a piece of round cylinder hit him in the side.

"It sounded something like that." Dais paused. "Get up. You're lying in my dust pile." He went to a knee, ushering dirt into his dustpan with what was left of his broom. Rûke's mouth hung still and open. He scrambled to his feet and shouted, crying, calling out for his mother.

Vaars smirked in unison with Dais this time.

*

SUBJECT: Aurai Durrin

AGE: 15

They kissed deeply, passionately, holding tightly. Aurai's fingers combed through his hair of jet, pulling him deeper into the kiss. Both panted as they broke their seal, her mouth rushing to his ear with eager tongue. "Let's go in my room. C'mon, Brego." He tried to object but she was too intoxicated with bliss to hear him. She quickly shut the door behind them and bolted the several locks before ushering him to her bedside all in a mad rush. The initiating Aurai pushed him gently to the floor before herself, hand unsnapping her skirt when his interrupting palm cupped o'er hers.

"Wait, Aurai. Should we be doing this? I mean, we were talking in the garden and you suddenly out of the blue kissed me and then you pull me into here."

"You weren't saying 'no' before."

Brego gave her a leveled look that did little to hide the color that flushed his face. "You didn't give me a chance. Aurai, I really do care for you. But don't you think you're moving a little fast? And... if your parents would find me in here with you, they'd kill me!"

She smiled and stroked her small knuckles across his cheek, leaning forward to pull him into a kiss. "No they wouldn't."

Obligingly, his hand gently began to rub at her inner thigh as he slowly pulled back to nip tenderly at the nape of her neck, cooing, "Mmm, Aurai," in her ear. The ardent Aurai urged his hand to her but a thought came to mind. Swiftly she slipped one slim leg from her dainty undergarments, neatly rolling them up on one thigh--a provocative sight to match such a sweet scent; overwhelming to the senses. "Please, Brego... I want to feel your kiss there...on me."

He obliged.

Fingertips combed through his hair like five, soft, writhing snakes in a field of black corn as his lips met hers, both growing with increasing moistness. Pleasure rose on an endless vertical as he enthralled her, drove her up her steep, steep peak, time passing in minutes that did not drone on as long as she would have wished them to. Everything suddenly began to swim within her head as her dike's swell met its ceiling, trapping her within a lovely torrent before her floodgates burst. Electricity surged imercilessly through her body as she felt a wonderful, floating numbness, stroking his heated brow and whispering sweet nothings to the warm, divinely-scented air.

As she slowly began to recover from her eruption, she discovered that Brego had stopped, sitting still before her. She smelt a faint sickening sweet burning hanging in the air--mom must have been trying to cook again. With a light touch she stroked the side of his face. Still warm. She blushed. I wonder how he liked me? she thought to herself. The two dainty fingertips raised to her barely opened mouth before she opened a curious eye to the red on her digits. Aurai began to shake.

She rocked gently at his shoulder, trying to get a reaction from him; calling his name, yet he did not stir. Giving it a bit more of an effort this time, she shook him with a slight shove, sending his head reeling back to discover in horror the hellish masque from whom's scorched lips and sockets rose thick black smoke, more pungently putrid than the rippling, coagulated blood that had poured from them mere minutes ago.

She screamed as loud as she never had before, barely taking a breath as she resumed her shrieks, edging to the corner of her bed with clawing hands and kicking feet and madly rolling eyes, the slowly cooling body slumping bonelessly backwards to the floor.

Her parents were not home and had been out for some time, but they felt the disruption of her magic and an increase in her destrado--a special ability to feel this was something all Mage families had--and immediately dropped what they were doing and rushed home. They found her draped in a large towel being cradled by Lady Peorth as if she were eleven years younger, less than two hours after the incident. Peorth discovered the poor child half-naked, rocking back and forth with her knees pulled to her chest, gently mumbling to herself while sitting in the corner of the room.

They buried Brego three days later.