Drunken Lullaby : An Erk and Serra Story:

Chapter 11: Keep Singing

'Another rainy day

I can't recall having sunshine on my face

All I feel is pain

All I want to do is walk out of this place

But when I am stuck, I can't move

When I don't know what I should do

When I wonder if I'll ever make it through.'

-'Keep Singing' Mercy Me

Disclaimer: I do not own the songs I use except for the songs by Kuri and I do not own Fire Emblem.

LLLLLLLLLL

Walking in the upper eastern wing of the palace, one small mageling turned the corner to view the opening of the grand library, a place that was considered one of the most complete even by Etruian standards which were high. The door was swung open with a large doorstop in the shape of the Saint's cat, Hera, the moon sitting upon the pure wooden icon, runic writing upon the body engraved with silver moon dust that had been grinded on the night of a full moon.

Hera was given the domains of the moon and guarding intelligence against those who stole the mind for their own purposes and the clarity of the future. Instantly, Reka wanted to pet the animalistic icon to ask for the truth he was in search of, the hope he dearly needed to hold onto his own mind before he went mad with the numbness that came with long unyielding terror.

The boy, however, kept his hand away from the idol to only wander through the ornate and rune-carved door, golden dust embalmed into the carvings. The main woodwork was of Saint Latona and Saint Elimine with their arms outstretched towards the sky, reaching forever in the dark mahogany to never reach the outstanding moon, Diane, who was crying her tears to the bottom of the door where dragons and tigers all moved fluidly in a border.

Reka had always been open for his strange fascination for the woman on the moon who was considered to be the ephemeral fantasy of the old pagan lord of the stars, Lord Orion. For every night Diane came out, it was told she was waiting for the Lord to awaken beside her and the nights she was not out, she became his bed mate. But most of all in the day time, if the image of the moon was seen at all, it was told that Diane had come to a man on Arcadia, in his dreams to be his fantasy.

Walking past the decorated wood into the smell of the musty pages of old, the young mage felt at home within the large room, filled with case after case of tomes holding knowledge like the precious gem that intelligence was, coveted by the leather bindings and colorful scripts. The writing in them all were the memories of a man, woman, or child putting themselves into history, giving those writers their immortal souls within the words that they had penned down upon old papyrus dried in the sun.

An elderly man from a desk, rather standard for a man of his office, rose upon his firm hands to look towards the wayward and gazing youngster, a bright child with all appearances of intuition and a keen memory. The elder could tell, from the memory of another young man like this one, that this was the child that he had been informed of.

"Oh, Lord Erk told me that a little boy might be coming up here. I'm the master librarian, Repue Yang de Etruia. Please feel free to read whatever you fancy, child." Repue was at first impression a hard lined grandfather, seeming strict with the many lines amongst his besotted face, though this was the answer to the contrary. He was no grandfather, a rather promiscuous man all his life, mostly jovial, like a Saint Nicholas, and most of all, his face was only spotted with many old chicken pox spots he had gotten in his late teens.

Reka wondered upon his eyes the most as they showed a life that had been hard and yet was still open to it, never giving up, never wanting for anything more than he had or once had. Biting his lips, reaching for the man, Reka's tentative fingers grasped upon the elder's cloak with ease, tugging the fabric towards him. The older man turned around to look at the child, asking with his eyes and not his speech upon what the child wanted.

"I'm looking for a book on demons." The boy's whisper was light, trying to be rather unheard of. Dark mages were looked down upon, considered a bit more than scum but nothing else. It was known that many shamans and druids went mad with the dark powers of the magical spectrum.

"Demons? Why would you look into that? Are you trying to become a shaman?" The man looked slightly surprised at the young child, unsure whether or not to allow this child access to the dark realm of his library. That is until a certain redhead came to mind. He sighed. He would have to follow her orders to not bar the child's inquiries and to tell no one what the child was interested in.

The boy seemed hesitant. Holding a small curled fist to hide his uncertainty, Reka stared at the older man before deciding upon an answer that would seem satisfactory for the man.

"I want to read them………in case…..uh…I ever have to fight one! I'd hate not knowing." Reka watched the man's actions, contemplating whether or not he should leave now and save the man breathe or wait for the hope of a simple allowance into the grand library of Ostia.

"Well, they're in the back next to a few ancient tomes in Draconic. Now the Draconic is under lock and key under the Marquee's order." The man didn't allow any emotion to flit across his face as he watched the child begin to leave him to his work, before turning around abruptly. Repue watched the child with a critical eye that was obtained after many years of being an ex-assassin for the dead father of the current Marquees.

"Thank you, Master Yang." The child gave a small smile before scampering softly to the back of the library where many of the draconic texts were locked up, which to Reka was unimportant for his search. Lady Seras, the one and only from all his bedtime stories, had personally saw him when she went to visit Erk early that morning. Reka had been serving his father, the Lady, and himself with tea when she had cast her attentions upon him.

He remembered how in awe he was that she spoke to a whelp like him. Reka had been easily frightened by the eyes she had. He could tell that she was intelligent with an aura of busyness. Her body was always in motion when she spoke and it was hard for Reka to imagine the woman tactician to sit still.

She had gently addressed a factor to Reka about the library being open to him and Erk if they had wanted complete access, even to the draconic texts, which by Erk's surprised visage was completely unheard of. Apparently, she had enough influence in the kingdom that she could get permission to open forbidden doors in which Reka was unsure whether or not that power had been able to corrupt her thoughts. His mother had spoken highly of the woman, but had always warned him to never place his heart in a tactician's knowledge.

Tacticians used anything at their disposal. There was a saying that whatever a noble threw out became a strategist's glory. However, Reka dared to think that there was a possibility of trustworthiness from the obviously talkative woman as she counseled Erk upon the matter of the Houses, not being too vocal, yet still voicing her concerns enough that Reka understood.

If it was a demon that a house was using, he should be able to find out what type by research. Afterwards, he had left to visit the library, unknowingly being used by Seras Talunis's mind.

"I hope he read the sign to not try anything without a cast of protection and barrier." The old man shook his head wondering what the tactician had wanted the boy to so desperately search for in the demon section of the library. Sitting down at the desk of his station, the old man frowned at the thought of that conniving woman.

As far as he knew it, there were only three times she had gone too far in her tactics with her soldiers. She had once used dead bodies as a cover against an overly powerful enemy when her band was still weak and not so strong. Another time, she had sent in a hostage into the enemy camp, without any protection, and had the camp massacred within an hour's time of nightfall. The last time he had heard was when she had involved an overly zealous child to take the life of a man that had stood in her way during the war. It was said she had given the child the dagger, defended the child, and allowed the child the coup de gras that the child had wanted. Afterwards it was said that the child had killed itself when they found out the true murderer of its family was a mere bandit from the spidery woman.

Repue only shook his head. If he didn't say anything then he wouldn't be brought to attention by that woman and that was the one thing he wanted.

In the back of the library, Reka started looking for a book that could maybe contain the information he wanted. Although he was young and many of the books were written in archaic script, he had no trouble due to the fact that magic flowed through his veins. The archaic writings on the spines rearranged by magical means to make sense to his eyes.

Glancing upwards, he began hearing the mutterings of a woman in the stony silent library. He frowned, pursing his lips; he looked in the next aisle behind him to catch the sight of Lady D'Targnan, the one with milky irises and black hair that reminded Reka of the darkest night he had ever found himself wondering in or a nightmare that he could not wake up from. Her eyes seemed as if they were eaten out and put in backwards to hide the fact that her irises were devoured.

He immediately froze hearing her voice. It was sultry and dark compared to her milky white skin, as if perhaps she had never belonged in the dark haired body than he did in his best friend's. He shuddered, pressing himself well against the wood of the library book case.

"Where is it? Cena said it would be in here." Who was Cena? His thoughts ran rampant. Reka knew innately not to trust this woman and thus he tried to keep his presence hidden from either her senses or her sight. She turned away from him, facing the texts that were against the wall in the very back of the shrine of knowledge. "Bah. How do you break such a small seal as that? Cenalis is wrong. It must be in the draconic texts. That jewel on her necklace will be broken yet."

'Who's Cenalis?' His thoughts varied up many answers but the fact that she was talking about a jewel on a necklace and the breaking of a seal. Breaking of seals usually meant whatever was going to be broken for was highly forbidden or only used in emergencies. Taking the notes in his head, he glanced once more to see the woman muttering, head bowed to her hands in thought, walking towards his end of the aisle.

'Oh no! She's coming this way!' Without thought, which he considered much later being a really stupid idea (Maybe Ikus was rubbing off on him.) and he never wanted to do it again, he cast an invisibility spell. However, due to a nature he did not know was apparent in the building, Reka felt a suctioning feeling, drawing him into the wood, the very essence of the papyrus and paper. It was painful nonetheless and he didn't know how much time had been spent between the feeling, the casting, and becoming aware that he was now nowhere but inside of thoughts. A thousand brushed his mind as if in greeting, many with the voices of the authors.

However, it wasn't until a certain passage being read out loud caught his attention to try and open his eyes. Well, he was on a letter. No, really, a letter.

This caused him such shock that he took a brain vacation for at least a few more moments.

'Okay, now that I'm stuck on a let-' He let logic begin however to have it halted by another of those voices brushing his mind however to stay for a time longer than thought of. It took a moment, but with his eyes over the fact that he was sitting on a letter, a man sat beside him, a frown marring his visage with obvious distaste.

'Boy……..who are you to invade us?' A gravelly voice rang out in his mind, loud and demanding. It was the sound of an angry grandfather, frowning heavily and reprimanding for a punishment. However, his mouth never moved from the set line in his face. Reka felt shudders go through his body at this strange revelation, almost as much as if he was looking at that creepy lady he had tried to hide from.

'Wha! Who's there?' He tried to speak with his mouth, but his lips never moved for he seemed to feel as if there was no body to command. His mind questioned for him and the frowning elder man seemed to nod in thought before a gentle woman, a matron of some sort, appeared on the letter beside them.

'Another spell caster! Blast! Don't you ever listen to your elders, boy?' He noticed her stature was in form of an elder as well but certainly not as ancient as the grandfather figure. She seemed to send her emotions of scolding through her mind to his as if wrapping her essence around his body, forming warmth to surge through him.

'Yes…….' He wanted to frown, wanted to turn away from her essence much like the child he was, but that he knew would not work. It seemed as if he was set into the pages like these voices, pure thoughts.

The woman seemed to become gentler as she felt his psyche spike into shame. This boy was only a child and she truly had no want to be angry with him as she could see in his eyes a great need of the knowledge they possessed. 'You cast a spell in the library with out a protection or barrier spell.'

'Am I stuck in here for long?' The boy did not seem to hear her as he seemed to try to find a way to move his body, forcing his mind to focus with all of his mana in his body. The grandfather frowned at him, rather the feeling of a frown wrapped around him causing him to lose all concentration in this strange trap.

'I think it will be all right. We should impart our knowledge.' Another voice echoed through him, a cheerful one with a bright tone to it. He felt a sense of her immortality as he seemed to breathe her sunshine in from the despair in his mind, a fresh breath. Somehow, she reminded him of Ikus and Nyne.

'Knowledge?' His voice questioned out in the oblivion around him, taking notice of the teenage girl who seemed to have a permanent smile on her face that never moved, along with the motherly woman who only held a sad smile, leaving the grandfather with his grumpy look. He desperately wanted to help his mother in anyway he knew how and getting information was the first thing to do.

'Yes, you came to research demons.' The matron's eyes, a shallow gray, seemed to deepen as if she was to be overwhelmed into sorrow. He got the feeling from her that she had dealt with demons in her life while she was writing her book. The grandfather seemed to send even darker feelings at him, causing the young boy to shake them off. The girl was the only one who was not sending her thoughts out.

'Yes. Dad said something about a demon taking mom.' He felt himself fall away from them, sending pictures of his memory to them to only hear their silence instead. They were troubled only slightly, except for the unflappable old man. He seemed to chuckle at the youngling and frown at the same time.

'Oie and what's this one's name? The boogie man?' He growled out in Reka's young and challenged mind, seeming to make the growl into a war cry that made Reka want to curl up against his mother as he seemed to search his mind for any way to explain a name or anything.

'I think it's that Cenalis per-' All three seemed to gasp and be shocked by varying degrees in their emotions that were reeling through his mind. They were quite interested now.

'Inform him.' The mother interrupted his thought and seemed to send a feeling of distinct coldness towards the grandfather sitting down on the letter. He seemed to affirm and let her know so without Reka noticing.

'Cenalis……..hm…..Cousin to Formatiis, a master demon in his own right. He was imprisoned in a teardrop of a phoenix that was crystallized by a gorgon before it was able to heal a hero two thousand years ago. ' He started his rote, sending a few images here and there, the young girl helping every once in awhile. Time passed but nothing that Reka knew of was time. There was no essence to keeping track of the time around him in this current trap that he was caught up into.

'Hurry! That Erk is here!' A voice of the matron came harried and the emotions of urgency seemed to wash over him. They had to hurry! He was nowhere near finished. The elderly man frowned even more, sending more intense images of the demon he was to fight.

'THAT NUISANCE! He leaves us open on our spines and everything! HURRY!' A second voice came into his barrier, sending her own images, her own memories of the demon. The matron trying her best to help with all thoughts, that was until a voice broke through every one of their thoughts.

He was aware of white and gold, an essence enveloped him whole and he knew he was not on the letter or in the papyrus anymore. He was in the space between nowhere and everywhere, here he was stuck in a limbo that was more comforting than the books. She seemed to smile in laughter and she was old and yet still young in everything she seemed to do.

'I'll just show you, child, everything about Cenalis, the demon of the phoenix.' He felt a mother and a child, a saint's power exude through his mind, images going through him. He was in a desert, a warrior, a gorgon, a phoenix, and he was still none of them. He saw the battle, felt their sweat and blood, drank their tears, was turned into stone, and yet he had never moved from the spot between. The essence cupped his cheek during the process and seemed to stroke his head.

'AHHH!' He screamed as he felt every wound at once, turned into stone dozens of times, and drank into the final poisons, but he was not killed. His mind warped and yet the presence never left until the end when he had learned everything, tears coursing their way down his apple-dapped cheeks, caressing them with the terror he had felt.

War was not kind. His eyes had opened and he knew that he had to help his mother. The woman smiled, a child echoed behind her eyes.

'This is good bye for now, my dear child.' Her essence seemed to swell for one last time before fading away back into the land where the authors resided. She was kind and gave him one last stroke before drifting back towards the books, the place he had come from.

'W-Wait! Wh-Who are you?' He reached out a hand in wonder, hoping to the Saint that everything had been true, that she was right. He could not be wrong.

'Saint Kinias, the dragon saint who is worshipped by the dragons. I was present there. Those are all the memories from my time and the library's other authors.' She waved him away, a sad countenance left in her wake as he felt the suctioning feeling and began screaming in agony. The feeling was still not pleasant from the first time he had done it.

"Reka!" His father's face blurred into his vision as he groggily lay on the aisle floor, the coldness seeping through his prone form. Erk's dark eyes were the first things that came clearly to the hazy child and what he saw there caused Reka to smile distantly. His father really did love him. At the time it seemed a frivolous idea to even think such a thing, but Reka could not help himself to the thought. His father's concern shined, tears threatening the edges of his amethyst oculars, shimmering in all feelings only a parent would truly feel.

"D-dad?" His voice sounded hurt, as if the actions were hurting him but Reka was miles away from his body, humming with the energy of a thousand suns and at one with himself, a thing that was not easy even for master sage generals to do. Smiling, at his father, being scooped up into the sage's arms with ease, Reka knew that he was safe and began drifting silently, when he realized that he had to tell his father what he had learned.

"Are you okay?" Erk's heart had stopped when Repue, an older man that had been the librarian of Ostia's library far before Erk could remember, had come to get him, After discussing tactics with Destin, who had come to have a small talk with him and to get his younger sister. Destin had taken his sister aside and left with her in town, saying his general farewell with less enthusiasm as he had said his hello.

The Master sage felt his heart calming down a little from the major scare he had gotten, finding his son in a book, which was never on the normal standards to start a relationship with a maybe-lover, especially since this woman he wanted, the boy's mother by all degrees, would not take to that too kindly. It was also something he never would want to experience as a father.

He had known a few of his mage friends, back in the Academy at Etruia, who had used magic spells while in the library and had disappeared into the books forever, becoming a lesson for all other students. Holding his son in his arms, Erk came to the conclusion that nothing felt better than holding this young bundle in his arms. Lifting his son up, he embraced the child tightly against his body then let him lay in his arms relaxed, as he walk back to his suite. No feeling in the world could beat his relief, or the sense of love he felt for the child and the strong he felt when he held his seed to him.

Nothing would beat that.

Except maybe knowing if he loved Serra.

LLLLL

Across the halls to the outside courtyards, in one of the gardens, walked two tacticians, and this joke was not including a priest. One of the strategists, the man, held himself aloofly as they walked, a long brunette braid resting on his shoulder, and his arms resting on his chest that was clothed in a light royal blue tunic with golden embroidery. The shorter of the two companions, dressed in a fine red and gold empire waist court dress, golden braids along the hems, was leaning over to sniff a hyacinths before winter dressed it away in the cold. Her warmed darkened red cloak rested on her shoulders, draping her form and creating the noticeable budge in the small of her back where two knives, gifts from their father, rested, ready to slide out of their sheaths at their master's call.

The brunette seemed to hold onto a disinterested expression as the fire-bred woman sat down on a nearby fountain edge, resting a hand upon her abdomen. The blue one, as he could aptly be called often, sat down beside her, looking into the garden paths from their entrance in the maze. His sister had broken the news of her childe to be and he had not taken it in as joyously as the father of the childe had. Destin was too worried about his sister. She was basically sitting on plans that were ready to topple and kill her and the throne of Ostia.

Though he did admit that Seras played the Game of Houses quite well but eventually something would go wrong, like it could always do. His sister should be celebrating her motherhood and not going around gallivanting as if she was not pregnant with a child, like their older sister had when she had her two children.

"Brother! We need this from you." Looking at him, whispering harshly, a low whisper that was barely given breathe for the urgency it had held in her voice, the harsh words coming across no more lighter than any thing else that was weighing upon the elder childe's mind. His green eyes were hushed against the onslaught of light that suddenly became bright as he raised his eyes skywards.

"I don't want to be involved in any of those plans you have in your head. Seras, look, I know how you work. Always have, remember? Between us both, I'm the better tactician." He turned to her to frown, watching his crafty little sister intently, hoping to find her next move in the chess game that they held often from within their minds with their own leaders. The woman beside him frowned in thought, a few tendrils of her hair, obscuring her green eyes, the very same eye color that had spawned from their mother, a Kutolah strategist, and the one he shared with her.

"That is why I want your support." Her voice seemed to be choked as if she was biting down on her outraging emotions, the ones that often times had gotten her into trouble with her husband and any manner of man she had ever been around. Destin reined in a curved grin that was waiting to come out as he watched his youngest sibling deal with her emotions. Unlike his other siblings, Destin felt a single connection with his younger sister that was made stronger over time ever since their mother had died. Michael and Leifander were too old, as the twins were eleven, to really connect with Destin, who had been seven, and Seras, who had been five, while Remiel had suddenly had all the matronly duties thrust at her at the age of nine.

He had watched over his younger sister and cared for her safety indefinitely, even to the point to threaten her husband and her own lord if she was injured or killed while in her service for Ostia. Destin had never become that close with his siblings and had been down right hated by their father for his incomplete apprenticeship underneath the man, allowing his younger sibling to become the apprentice in his stead when he went to learn far away from their manor to the rich books of Etruia and Ostia, where he had inconsequently met his friend Erk.

Seras was being too serious now which was unlike her and Destin now understood that this would be one of many turning points in the plan she held in her head in secret. He would have to make sure that he was not just being used by the woman's annoying and always changing emotions, which had dulled a little over time, probably due to the matter of her domestication by her husband, the black heart, Legault.

"No, it isn't. I need to know." He reached a hand, caressing the outcast strands of hair that obscured her eyes from him to behind her ear. She instantly seemed to jump at the touch. Legault had been the only person to touch her, besides Serra, in years. Neither Destin nor her bubbly sister, Remiel, had held her or even had skin contact with her in so many years that the touch was foreign.

Her eyes looked as open as tears began to develop, twisting and bubbling up from a fountain of fear, she usually kept efficiently down. It really amazed her how she was always confusing herself with the delusions that she was able to go on even in the face of death. In this game of Houses, she was laying not only her life, but others as well and that was what made it harder for her. She didn't want people to die, her childe to die, her husband, her brother, none of them should have to die to resolve this.

Destin often told her that her resolution was just a petty ideal, and she knew Legault agreed but that was what he had loved about her. She still held ideals even when people died around her.

In short, she was very afraid to lose any of them.

"I may not be here when it goes down." Her mouth trembled as her hands did as well, wringing the braids of her empire waist, having undone the bow long before as they had walked amongst the gardens. It was not well-known that Destin and Seras were siblings. Destin claimed he was from the House of Irynas, their mother's name, since he considered his father lower than even his eldest sibling that had willingly worked for Nergal as a tactician. In fact, there were only a handful that knew of his true name as Destin Talunis, his family, (two sisters) his best friend and tutor for years, Erk, his liege, Lyndis, and lastly, Legault, whose own true name was not known to any of them.

Staring at his sister, Destin felt his heart begin beating incessantly in panic. She had always caused a panic, much reminding him of his time with Serra, left and right causing more destruction than not. A strong sense of protection came over him as his features scowled in darkness, an arm reaching for her other shoulder, pulling her closer.

"My death is a must-have for the resistance. In order for the confrontation to even happen, I will be dead." After a few moments of silence, getting her mind in complete order so that she could tell him a little of her plan, so she could plead for help. "Look……..My people, Ostia, will need help in getting the demon out of the courts."

Destin sighed as he drew her to him, finding it quite strange that she was accepting his affections, since she normally claimed that she could not be bothered with such notions, but then again, Legault had probably changed her a lot. She was calmer than normal and more worn out. He sighed. He had never been able to really refuse his youngest sibling unless he considered it highly frivolous.

"You know I love you." He kissed her forehead attentively, wrapping his other arm around her in an awkward hug, holding her closely. Seras smiled in contentment. She had always felt secure, maybe angrily but secure, in her brother's arms. It was the sense of dependency only he had ever been able to give her that caused even her husband's dependency to be questioned.

"I love you too." In her return, she nuzzled deeper into her brother's chest, smelling the faint smell of sunflowers that he preferred simply because it reminded him so often of his favored archer, but that was a story for another time. The only onlooker onto this sight was a young maid servant that was quite shocked at the two, not knowing of their family ties to each other and began to form thoughts that would pass the information she was watching from the shadows of the hedges to her true master.

LLLLLL

It was midnight, the time of complete obscurity within the lighted chambers of the tactician's suite. Two figures lay against each other, resting it seemed, until the bigger of the two rolled gently out of the bed, disentangling himself from the smaller figure in the bed. The small figure's eyes flashed open revealing grass green oculars, wide in understanding and fear of loss.

"You're going aren't you?" Her voice echoed against the quiet night, seeming to unwind the magic spell of sleep she was supposed to be in. Her husband turned to her, belting a bandolier filled with magical orbs with the attributes of the particular type of magic. Seras stared. She didn't know what to say.

"It's been three days. I won't be suspected." It was like watching another soul sent off to fight in a war she was fighting to end, her first mock battle, and her first fling. Seras had only had two men before Legault, one being another assassin who had been part of her team at her graduation exam, and the other being an honest cavalier in the first army she had assembled underneath her brother, Leifander's, watchful eye.

"Please, both of you, come back safe and sound." She could remember when the cavalier had gotten up from their sexual exploration; putting his clothes and armor on, checking everything to make sure he would still be able to guard her. That cavalier had died taking a lance through the chest when Seras had been shooting at a rogue Pegasus knight. Her first lover, the assassin, had been caught off guard by a magic blast that had been sent by the men that had lost to Seras in an earlier battle. She had watched him rise up and put on his clothing and weapons also before being decimated in a matter of minutes. She got her revenge on the men that had done both, one by arrow, and the others by daggers.

"I will, Seras." She never wanted to see Legault do it. He turned to her, bracers strapped onto his wrists, and stretched his hand to caress her cheek, bending over, lavender hair falling over his shoulders which were wrapped in his dark clothing. He gently kissed her cheek, licking her cheek from a tear before he backed away enough, opening the milky white eye.

"How are they not going to tell its you?" Her voice seemed empty as she rose up and touched his cheeks. She loved that eye. It was a scar that was open to her and showed her everything she ever knew to be true. No matter how cloudy it became, she had no trouble discerning his blue gaze from underneath the milky white scar tissue.

The man was a troubled soul, resting more times than not within her arms, a haven he deemed to constrain him. His desire was to wait until Seras could get a replacement in Ostia before they could restart the Black Fang, his deepest desire only to be granted by his fierce wife.

She was scared and he was the only one besides her brother that may have been able to notice it.

"I have a good disguise. You might say that there will be two of me." Kissing her forehead once more, he raised an amulet imbued with the powers of St. Elimine that had been altered specifically for his wife, to her neck. As soon as the amulet touched her skin, Seras, who had a low immunity to sleep spells, feel asleep instantly. The last image of her shadowy husband left behind for her to contemplate on before the darkness consumed her into a torrid bliss was that milky eye, a scar for her to look upon in the dusty battlefield." I had our esteemed Sage Master cast a protection spell on it. You will be woken up if anyone comes in besides me. So sleep well, my dear."

As he rose, after fastening the chain around her neck, Legault sighed and finished preparing for a battle that very may well cost his life as he had been living the life of a noble for some time.

He just hoped to the Saint that his skills weren't too rusty.

LLLLLLL

Eternity in the darkness with nothing but her prayers for her company, along with a few rats here and there, were to be emptied as the pink-haired woman, who had no longer been touched by any of the guards after a man came, looked up at the sight of two heads in her view.

Normally, Serra, who really hated bloodshed, would scream her guts out and hide in the nearest corner with her hands on top of her head but she didn't really react as she would normally. For some strange reason, she registered that she was satisfied that these heads belonged to the guards. Their expressions torn in surprise, awe, and lastly fear. They had been left in their final moments in the way she had felt after they began their violation of her.

The blood dripping from their necks was proof of their death. A single hand held both decapitated heads. Serra, numbly, followed from the hand to the eyes that she see. The being was darkness itself and the only way she could tell it was a person and not just the strange pulsing darkness in the dungeon was those eyes. They were brown and the ex-cleric knew she had seen them somewhere before, but the reason never seemed to come as she stared.

His other hand was extended in front of her sitting form. For some reason, Serra returned to herself, begging her heart and mind to hide these events away in the deepest sea chest she could find in her mind so that she may never view or feel these events again. There was only one thing on her mind. She had to get back to Reka.

Grabbing the hand as firmly as she could, she raised herself up with the help the familiar face could give her. She stood for a few moments, getting used to her body again, and turned a questioning look at the man, who stood taller than her by a foot and a half, which was quite tall and for some reason, he smelled of faint saffron, a desert scent.

She had to get to Reka, her only light of the sun and hope, her childe that she had bore from her womb. Serra never felt any desire more strong at that moment, though concern for Erk came close to her son. She stared at the man hard. Never look a gift horse in the mouth.

"We're going to escape." Those words were low and nearly swallowed up by the darkness around him if it weren't for the slight puff of air she saw escape his visage, or what she thought to be his visage. She was not sure yet. Right now, this man was a god send, even if his entire demeanor was familiar to her, but that was something to be sorted from the most recent and most important mission for her to do. She had to leave. They had to leave from this hell. "We have to leave now."

He held her hand in his own, dropping the heads onto the cold stone ground. Serra, being tugged, yelped out loud as her muscles screamed at her with their pain and misuse, the abuse she had been put through a small reminder. Holding her free arm around her stomach, she began tearing up as she felt as if hell could never be this hot from the stretched and fractioning heat that rose up from her complaining body.

"Drink." The man stopped, reaching into some unseen part of himself and drew out what seemed to be a holy object. A vial of blue liquid sloshed around as he uncapped the top with his teeth and held her mouth to the vial, letting the vile drink to be forced down her throat. The woman squirmed, tears forming due to the extremely bitter taste of the medicine.

In her mind, fully awakened from her drawn out spirit experience, Serra marveled at how quick the medicine worked and realized that this stranger must have used an elixir on her which was not that easy to come by, especially since they were made with the rarest and most expensive herbs.

"Thank you." Feeling her mind function fully, the darkened female voiced out her graciousness, a small smile gracing her lips in the darkness. He nodded, pulling her with one had and putting the vial away in a pouch at his side. As they raced up the dark steps where a small torch light could be seen, others in the barred dungeons that they passed were blissfully silenced with sleep or death, the desert man spoke to her with instructions. if we get in battle." Serra frowned. She didn't know how to get out of here by herself. The man stopped, motioned for her silence as well, then peered around the corner, relieved a bit to see that the guard change was not to be, as he knew that the guards in the barracks were dead.

"How will I find you then?" After the needed moment of silence, she tugged on his cloak to face him in the torchlight as they turned into the landing at the top of the stairs where the guard room had been. Speaking her question lowly, she got to see his skin which was a dark tan with eyes of brown cinnamon which bordered on dangerous. This man looked tired as if he had been running his whole life hoping to find his something to keep him there.

He was tired just like she was tired, except there was a set amount of determination, hers in getting back to her son and her sage, and his with keeping whoever he was protecting safe from harm. Serra was sure that the person he was trying to protect was not her. The familiarity though in his features made her grin.

She had needed a familiar face whether or not she could face it if need be.

"Here. This will make you invisible for ten minutes. Only use it when you must. Magic can alert the enemy easily." He grabbed her other hand at her side and rummaged a bit in the darkness of his figure, a tendril of dark red hair poking out from his hood. He wrapped her fingers finally around an amulet of power that had been made by Erk that very afternoon for Legault, for a reason he had no idea of.

Serra nodded and the two began their careful trek through the manor of one D'Targnan fortress, complete with demon and the dead.

LLLLL

There were hallways and even more hallways at every turn, with an occaisional guard or servant passing by to end up with no more breath left in their system. Serra watched almost cruelly as innocents, or what seemed like innocent people were killed before her. She watched silver blades, beautiful tools of death, become washed with the crimson essence of life, feeling as if she was the ones to use them instead of the man protecting her.

Her thoughts upon the man were frightening to herself. He scared her. That was about it, but he was a familiar fright, much like the unknown to something that is known. Serra knew enough or recognized enough that he would leave her behind if he was allowed to, which made her realize that Seras was the one who probably hired him.

Serra knew that she could trust him but never completely.

It was just the amount of deaths that were mounting up as she was being led around. Another servant rounded a corner to begin a scream at one look at their ragged clothing. The man had no blood on him compared to Serra, who seemed to be washed into dirt and grime and shadows caressing her face as if she was no longer a woman of standing. It only took a moment for the servant to open her mouth before a blade sliced across her throat, blood spurting into the darkness as they ran by, cautiously looking this way and that as if they had just littered some old garbage on the side walk.

The little cleric felt disgusted by her reaction as she watched the blood fall away. She was frightened, almost too scared to care what happened, but her stomach revolted, like it would normally during battle. She had cried at night when she was fighting in the campaigns with her tacticians and the other fighters.

Reaching out a hand to end up being pressed against a grey stony wall, Serra stopped, bending her head down and catching up on her breath. She had never had this much excersize and her body was not use to the rapid movement. Her lungs were on fire, her stomach sloshing violently causing tinges of naseua to provoke through her. Her other hand clutched at her heaving stomach as she took a breather from all the running away. The man stopped as well, turning around to look at her with a concerned look in those dark brown eyes that reminded her of cinnamon in mulberry wine.

"We can't rest until we get out." She frowned as she took a few more breaths then began to stand up when he pressed a palm against her shoulder, turning to give a warning from his eyes then disappeared down the hallway. A loud scream was heard as shouts of men echoed out in the grey corridors. Serra pressed herself as flat as she could, almost thinking about using the medallion until the man's words came to her about using it. She wasn't about to be spotted as she heard the men scurry around in a hustle, shouts of death and then silence. Pants were echoing the walls around the corner as the men seemed to be resting for a moment, probably frantic from the sudden surprise.

All senses were ripped away from her for a few moments as she heard the pounding hearts of the two soldiers seem to explode with their every breath, imploding unknowingly to their doom. Her back rested against the wall as both men began shuffling about, their pants becoming worried.

"SHIT! D'Targnan is going to have our hide! Did you see where the bastard went?" She didn't have to see the soldier to tell he was a burly, filled with the stenches all the others carried with them. Her heart raced as she could hear the echoes of their feet. She prayed in her mind that they didn't come towards her direction.

"He had to have Moraghin's shadow to disappear that quickly!" The other was slightly younger but probably still as grizzly with a voice that matched sandpaper on gravel. Serra wanted to be taken away from this as if the sounds of the men were enough to make her fall back into that strange void where she had been unaware of herself, in a dungeon that was made of despair and fear.

A loud crash echoed down the corridor that caused the two men to begin running again, a shout coming as they ran past Serra's huddled form against the wall trying her best to remain unseen from their sight. As she watched them run away from her, a hand grasped hers, almost making a scream escape from her mouth, but thankfully the being put a hand on her lips to shush her.

It was a man all in black but he had a blue eye and milky white eye that reminded the little cleric of another person who had it as well but she couldn't place a name to the face. She knew him though and that was for certain. The man seemed to be kinder than the other man with the tawny skin, a smile could be seen on the ripples of his mask.

He seemed to breathe a sigh of relief at her uninjured form, though it was dirty looking and surely disgustingly smelly. He reassured her with his hand squeezing her fingers, the smile still upon those wrinkles on his mask, or at least, Serra liked to think that he did.

"This way!"

LLLLLLL

After several surprising fights, in which Serra had been hidden in due course whilst the fights had commenced, but as to all assassin battles, each battle ended almost quickly as it began, though the assassin didn't always end up unscathed.

Serra had kept her head down, watching the ground as she ran with the man, not willing herself to look down the corridors that could become splattered with the remnants of human remains, the ones of those who had opposed the rescuers or come into their warpath of silver and carnage.

It wasn't until a softness surrounded the sensations on her feet did Serra take notice of the cold air that surrounded her body with the refreshing scent of the outside world that she had not known for days. Steadying her gaze to the outside, she noted that the masked man was beside her with those two different eyes, holding onto his shoulder.

"We……We made it." Her voice seemed to question the idea that they had indeed made it outside the compound in which she was housed against her will. The man nodded to affirm her suspicions. It was not just an illusion that she was seeing, feeling, completely experiencing amongst her skin. Her eyes were so trained that she almost did not hear the man's hushed whisper against the shadowy night.

"Thank the Saint that we did……Ugh…" His hand clenched onto the wound that was bleeding on his shoulder. The girl's eyes went wide as she watched him nearly fall from the pain. The adrenaline rush was dying down for the masked being and he was hurt.

"What's wrong?" She hovered over him with concern evident in those impish eyes of hers, which he was sure had been only evident for moments as she was reuniting her soul with herself. He smiled, taking a pendent that he resembled the one he had slipped upon the neck of a certain stratagist, and placed the amulet upon her wrist.

Her eyes widened as the golden smooth stone rolled across the planes of her wrist, a delicate golden braided chain wrapped quickly and efficiently. Her lids began falling slowly, her body slumping as the spell took hold. Fighting a sleep spell that was attached to one's skin through a charmed item was not an easy thing to do and Serra had only been forced to face this type of spell use only once before. (She detested that humiliating memory and somewhat cherished it at the same time. She did make a pretty pink cat after all.)

"Sleep, Lady. You will be safe and so will I when we arrive in the arms of those that care." A deft hand and a shallow voice came out from the shadows holding the tattered figure of a dirtied angel. The man sighed, huffing as he shifted his hold on the light room to his back, grasping her to him with his will and his force before he began moving amongst the shadows once again with his passenger into the darkness to arrive to a favored destination.

LLLLL

A pounding came upon the door of Erk's suite in the early morning hours causing the sage to almost curse St. Elimine and St. Latona for such slights as the morning hours. Shifting on the bed he shared with his son, a secondary glance at the child to tell if the worn out kid was still asleep, which he was, before he decided to rise up and answer the knocks upon his door.

He absent mindedly slipped a tunic on his body, a hand moving in runic motions calling forth a spark of fire to his fingers, ready to become an inferno at its master's call. The sage master grumbled, his hands fumbling with the locks upon the door before he pulled it open to see Master assassin Legault de Fang standing in front holding a beaten woman religiously.

The man frowned and brushed past Erk, laying the immobile form of the woman he carried to the rug by the wash tub and the screen. His blue eye was marred with a worry Erk almost knew nothing about. The sage ran over, shutting the door with a silent force, extinguishing the sparks that had been at his fingers for a non magical touch.

"What happened! SERRA!" His heart stopped, wrenched open as he looked upon her form with more fervor in his eyes. He had let this come to her. Guilt tugged at him as the devil strung himself a guitar made of Erk's heartstrings. The purple-haired father reached out, grabbing his pseudo-wife to him, tears falling out of his eyes. After awhile, when Erk calmed down enough to help bathe and clothe the beautifully fractured vixen that had been given to his care with Legault, a silent helper throughout this all, the assassin finally spoke.

"She's not going to be the same for awhile. The perpetrators have been dealt with and D'Targnan has been dealt a heavy blow." His voice was low, a coarse throat going up and down on sandpaper. He was the darkness surrounding them both as they sat in the distinct chairs in the study of the magic man's suite. "Are you sure you don't love her?"

Erk blushed so much that he was sure that a fire spell could not be as effective in lighting the room as much as his visage was at the moment. He gasped, trying to gain breath as he thought of the possibility. There was no way that he was in love with her, was there?

He really had to wonder.

"I'm not……..I'm not sure what to think." Bowing his head down, curls of royal purple hair spilling upon his tunic without much ado, Erk tried to answer to the best of his ability.

"Destin said as much." Legault frowned. His shoulder still throbbing from pain he had received earlier in his mission. Standing up, Legault started swantering to the door, resting against a wall, grasping onto the wood for strength. His wife was waiting for the news.

Damn Erk.

That boy had no idea how lucky he really was. There were so many people out there that looked after the boy and yet he wanted to wander away into his misery, but then again there had only been two people who had ever gotten the sage out of his depressing and realistic thoughts and that had been the regal Louise and spunky Serra.

"You're a real lucky bastard Erk. You've screwed up once and yet she falls in your lap once more. This is your fate to decide." The blackheart growled in displeasure, a frown wrought upon his one-eyed gesture, turning to face the astonished boy-like master of magic. The man looked at none of him and yet, he was staring straight into Erk's body. "I almost wish I had your luck."

"What would you have done with it?" The mage rose up, brows furrowed before resting to sit back down. His eyes looking distant. Erk had always thought himself to be unlucky, stuck with people who liked to disrupt his work and everything else that bothered him or caused him to shut himself down. His heart pounded as he thought upon the woman that seemed to be the root of all of his problems at the moment and she was resting upon the bed he was going to be joining shortly.

Serra was such a sweet problem, a confusing one too, to deal with.

"I'd have saved the Fang. If I was lucky enough I would have been able to convince my brother to not be so blinded. I would have never been given that order." Erk felt his heart tighten considerably with Legault's glance over his shoulder, both eyes open, frightening the spellcaster with the one milky eye, seeming not to blink but to look through him. The man had a sad smile on his lips, before turning around and walking back towards the door that opened into the suite.

"She would have lived."

"Who?" Erk rose up, unaware of himself doing so and reached out to the saddened voice that was embodied by the midnight darkness, the shadow that was often murmured with the Hurricane's chosen name wandered back into its essence leaving him in the darkness to ponder about his predicament and his feelings.

The shadows seemed to have no answers.

LLLLLL

It was only the next morning as he was dressing his wife before a response came. Legault knew it was from D'Targnan, a maid bearing the news as usual. The master thief felt his mouth turn to a frown as his wife took no notice with her husband's help wrapping her dress's belt around her waist, his deft fingers tracing up her spine.

"Master Legault, you are wanted by Lord Hector. Forgive me for intruding, Lady Seras." Seras frowned her pouty lips before returning her sights to the mirror in front of her. Her husband's fingers tightening the belt before knotting the silk braid. His wife's hair fell from her braid, caressing his fingers with their fire-licked lockes.

"I'll be just fine, Legault! Go play with the lord." With a wave of his wife's scarred fingers, nicked from old daily training sessions with her knives and her bow and arrow. The blackheart frowned then nodded, walking away, his breath uncertain against her back, retreating along with figure.

"Yes, wife." His voice was lost to the sounds of the hallway and the clacking of heels, a wicked grin upon his lips.

Things were progressing into the next act.

LLLLL

Slightly frowning, leaning against the inn room that he had been told to go to by the maid, Legault stared at the demon controller, watching every movement with critical memories. The demon collector wore a doublet of such finery that Legault's bones, the ones that were noble as he had once been a heir to the kingdom of Etruia. (A long story that had the basic principles of Robin Hood wrought throughout them.)

This man flaunted his wealth and power as if he had a right to when the assassin in the meeting knew that he abused his powers as much as he used them.

"What is this about, D'Targnan?" Finally speaking through the obvious silence, the black heart bandit stopped leaning against the wall with his arms crossed and walked over, sitting in a chair that was not offered to him. D'Targnan watched his dark and gruesome eyes at this man's impertinence to disrespect him.

"Did you know that your wife is cheating on you?" The standing man knew it was of no consequence when he started grinning, turning around to cruelly measure Legault's reactions. The man only seemed to be wide-eyed and nothing else. It pissed him off a little but then again this man was considered to be deadly as well, but not as deadly as the fiery wife he kept. Legault followed his gestures as he threw his head upwards and laughed. "She is and I'm sure that she isn't carrying your child around, since you have been married for five years and she only became pregnant very recently. And since she hasn't shared your bed in the longest while, she must be getting satisfied by another man. After all, no woman waits to have children after marriage."

Legault remembered that conversation with his wife about having children. She wanted to wait and he had stood by and allowed it, realizing that he was not to make her do something she did not want to do. Glancing back to the standing man, the black heart felt his blood boil and his shackles rise in anger. He knew what was coming.

"Kill your wife."

Those were the words Legault dreaded the most.

LLLLLL

I'M DONE WITH THIS CHAPTER! WHOOOOOOOT! Okay next chapter will be more on Serra and more progression of plot details and all that nonsense.

I am currently in college and in English 102 so I can't update this as much as I would like. I will though keep up with typing stories and working as hard as I can. I'm soooo happy that I have finished this chapter as it took me forever to try to describe everything! I'm trying to get my mojo back as I had writer's block and I was playing Dirge and other games that I have just gotten……….

Anyway, please enjoy and READ AND REVIEW! LOVES TO ALL WHO DO!