Dark-birdie: -yawn- wah…I need SLEEP…but too bad, I stayed up all night watching episodes 1-6 of chrno crusade, and now I'm pooped… T-T I need a pillow… -grabs dog and uses him as a pillow-

Anywho, here ya go

Chapter 5

'I guess…' thought Cesia to herself, as she looked out her room window down into the Queen's Rose Garden. 'I guess even though he retains no memories, his attitude and feelings towards the people he knew still stay with him…'

She had been studying the way he acted around the Dragon Clan for the past couple of days, and her hypothesis seemed correct. The Fire Knight was still overly obsessed about the Blue Dragon Officer. And he also carried brotherly feelings towards the Water Dragon Knight whom he still annoyed, but enjoyed being around. And though a bit more immature, he carried the same nature he always did.

"What to do, what to do…" she mumbled to herself, leaning back in her chair. It had been a total of three weeks since Rath's memory loss, and still she had not found a way to bring them back. Her only clue was to create a life-threatening situation, but she wasn't about to throw the boy off a cliff or anything.

The winter season was slowly making its presence known on the Dragon Castle's grounds. The "white stuff" Rath had seen was now covering all of Dusis. But the boy never seemed to want to go outside after the accident. He had become strictly afraid of the frozen ice and coldness, which was rather odd for him, seeing as the Fire Dragon Knight had always been afraid to close to nothing.

Currently, the boy was yanking at the ends of the poor Water Dragon Knight's hair trying to make the elf practice sword fighting with him.

"Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeease? Only for a little while, I promise!"

"Absolutely and most positively not! Last time you said 'a little while' you made me stay there with you for over five hours!" He tried to pull his hair free from the red-haired boy's grasp. This was just one of those moments when he wished his hair was not so long. "Plus, I'm helping Alfeegi finish these documents right now, can't you bother Kai-stern or Thatz?"

"Bleh, who cares about al-MEANIE. And Kai-stern's on a trip and Thatz is locked in his room sleeping. Come on, PLEASE?"

"No, and I mean NO!" shouted Rune, lifting Rath up, throwing the boy over his shoulder, kicking open the doors, harshly placing Rath on the solid ground, and slamming the door back shut in the Fire Dragon Knight's face. (Yes, Rune is very strong)

Rath took about five minutes to make childish faces at the door, then gathered himself up and looked around for someone else to bother.

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"Master Kharl, what are you doing?"

The young human boy, distinctive tri-colored hair poking this way and that, finished his task of putting numerous amounts of books away and wiped his dust-covered hands on his already filthy apron. His sharp, green eyes focused on his master and only friend.

His master, the infamous, and deadly, alchemist, Kharl, was busy tying a cloak around his shoulders. His white, rather "fluffy" hair was a brilliant white, and his mysterious blue eyes matched well with wintery outfit. A white cloak, white tunic and shirt, and white pants seemed to be a rather…ironic outfit for one associated with so many horrible deeds.

But, of course, why should Kharl care about irony? To Garfakcy, all the evil in the renkin wizard's brain took up so much space, that it kicked out all the actual, well, BRAINS. The alchemist was quite stupid and dim-witted when it came to anything BESIDES plotting evil plans to toy around in the lives of seemingly peaceful people.

"Oh, I'm just going to go…out…" replied the alchemist, finally getting the cloak on right.

After being around him for so long, Garfakcy knew better than to ask where "out" was. He already knew his master was going to do something evil, or potentially evil, at least, because of the sarcasm on the word "out", but it didn't bother him in the least.

"Have fun…"

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Rune sighed as he finished checking over and filling in the numerous amount of paperwork that had been left for him to do. Unfortunately, the White Dragon Officer still had a stack more to fill in.

"It's okay, Rune," said the tired officer from behind his desk. He was furiously scribbling away at the form in front of him. "I'll finish it off. You can go."

"Are you sure? There's still a lot left, I can-"

"No, no, I'm fine," said Alfeegi, placing the finished form in a separate file and grabbing another paper from the top of the stack. "I'm used to it, seeing as Ruwalk never does his own work. I usually have to do it for him. You've helped enough."

"Well, if you say so…" Rune made his way to the door, thinking of what to do next. 'Maybe I was too harsh on Rath back there. I wonder what he's doing no-"

At the moment he had opened the door, something dashed past him; a blur of ruffles and red.

The "blur" stopped its furious movement, and backed up to Rune's location.

Rune stared at Rath. Rath stared back. Rune put a hand to his mouth and tried desperately to hold it in, but-

"AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! RATH! WHAT ON EARTH ARE YOU WEARING!"

The elf leaned against the frame of the door, clutching his stomach, which was quickly filling with the pains one gets when they laugh a little too much.

Alfeegi, curious to know what the cause of Rune's sudden outburst was left his desk and walked to the door.

Now, the White Dragon Officer never laughed. Even if he had seen Tetheus dressed as a clown hanging upside down from a trapeze, he wouldn't have laughed. So instead, his mouth formed a kind of "crack" on his face and he tried exasperatingly hard to not smile.

The clueless Fire Dragon Knight was clad in a rather exquisite, cute, and very red dress which just SHOUTED "Raseleane" from its girly depths. Though Rath was a boy, he seemed ignorant of what he was wearing and actually looked, well, cute. His slender figure and size fit the dress perfectly, and from far off one would probably mistake him for a female with odd-colored hair. Hell, he was even wearing attachments on his hair to make it look longer. He stared oddly at the laughing elf.

"What?" he asked blankly.

A rush of footsteps was heard as a person came down the hall. It was the queen herself, Lady Raseleane.

She beamed and smiled. "Oh! There you are, Rath dear. I was wondering where you had gotten to."

Rath prepared himself to run again, grabbing a fistful of cloth as to make room for his feet to tread on the floor, but Alfeegi grabbed his arm with surprising strength and held on tight, preventing the boy from leaving.

"My Lady, may I ask," started Alfeegi to the Dragon Queen, "What have you been doing to this boy?"

"Oh well," Raseleane giggled, "Funny thing, actually. I happened to be working on this new dress when Rath came by my room looking bored. He asked what I was making, and well, imagine my surprise when I learned he didn't remember what boys wore and what girls wore. And so, I just decided to have a little fun, and that's basically how we came here." She finished her explanation and continued smiling.

Rune recovered from his laughing spree and stood up straight, though still filled with the slight giggles. "Well then why was he running away?" he asked.

"Ah, that. Well, he looked out my window and saw Kai-Stern entering the grounds. So he just sped out of my room to go greet him. And look at him go."

"What?" Alfeegi stared at the spot where the Fire Dragon Knight had been locked in, firm in his grasp, a few moments ago, and noticed that the boy had indeed escaped from the officer, and was now running down the hall at top speed.

Alfeegi was drained of color for a moment, then gathered up his infamous anger once again, "He can't go out dressed like that! Hurry up, we have to catch him!"

But they were far too late already. Rath had hastily made his way down the flight of steps and was at the entrance doors, waiting for the moment when the Blue Officer would enter for the boy to pounce on him.

He waited there for a few seconds, ready to pounce, like a cat, and then-

"I'M BACK!"

"KAI-STERN!"

Rath jumped on the Blue Officer, who in turn put the knight in a death-hug. They both fell backwards.

Kai-Stern opened his eyes to get a good look at Rath, and boy, was he surprised.

"…"

"What?" asked Rath yet again. "Everyone's been looking at me all weird. What's so weird? Tell me!"

"Um, well, you're wearing a dress, for one," said Kai-Stern, trying not to think that the knight actually looked adorable.

"So?" Rath looked down at his clothes. He didn't think anything was wrong with them.

"Well, you see- uh, well…boys aren't supposed to wear dresses."

"Raseleane said it was okay. She said it was cute!" he said, looking happy.

Kai-stern sighed, "Yes, well, boys just don't wear them, so just…go take it off. And those hair things, too."

"Okay then!" Rath got up and ran to find the room which he had come from, where he had left his clothes in.

Kai-stern put a hand to his forehead. 'I think that memory loss spring also took away some of his age…' he thought to himself. 'I need to have a talk with Raseleane about her dress-up habits…'

But nonetheless, he smiled. He was home, just in time for the holiday season. Christmas was just around the corner, as was the evil clothed in white.

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dark-birdie: YAY! FINISHED! Don't forget to review!

Btw, my b-day is in FOUR days! Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!