Welcome to Gaia! ::

((I think a pirate plan is necessary to really continue; it wouldn't make any sense for us to just haphazardly throw pirates at the ship, so I think I'll come up with a plan for the pirates to be following in their assault.

Extra note halfway through typing this post: This is a very long post, and a lot of things happen, so feel free to add your own simultaneous events. Otherwise, the entire battle would go by with only my characters acting, which wouldn't make any sense.

Extra extra note almost done writing the post: I'll still use the characters I created for the reconciliation scene in Kilika, but I found a better opportunity for the reconciliation itself to happen here, so I'll take advantage of it.))

Calaman bit back a curse at Eddora's orders - after all, she was the summoner - and grudgingly hefted his sword in acknowledgment of the order.

"May I ask," he said with some exasperation, "that you at least avoid putting yourself in too much danger, Lady?"

As if on cue, the other guardian approached and made his pitch, interrupted hotly by Eddora, who was in turn followed by the lurch of the ship. Shouting, Aer ran - Idiot, Calaman thought - to lean over the edge of the ship, staring out at the water.

"They're sending in longboats full of swordsmen!" he called back. "And it looks like that mage wasn't the only one - there's one in each boat!"

He stumbled back when the ship lurched again, fortuitously in the opposite direction, else Aer might have gone over the edge. Calaman looked to Kenan, deciding that his earlier assessment of the man was more or less accurate: This was a skilled fighter. As long as they fought on the same side, Calaman did not need to worry about anything Kenan undertook to do. Aer was not such a certainty; he'd only ever seen the man perform one spell, and he hadn't been using it for battle. Eddora... he had no idea. She'd said that she could fight, but he wouldn't be sure as to the extent of her skill until he saw her in battle. And seeing her in battle - and thus risking her safety, something he was sworn to protect - was the last thing he wanted to do just now.

A series of large streaks of fire arced over the ship, most of them narrowly missing the sails, while one cannoned straight through the mainmast. The impact wasn't enough to break the mast, but some of the small subsequent explosion of fire caught on one of the sails, which promptly went up in flames. Aer spun, wordlessly put his hands together at the heel, and aimed them at the burning sail...

...And changed. Calaman stared, momentarily dumbstruck, as the black mage's countenance darkened. He looked like a man about to do murder, and, simultaneously, like a man who had just witnessed the murder of a loved one. As if he stares into the most horrifying depths of the Farplane, Calaman thought, and means to do battle with it.

It seemed to Calaman to last a lifetime. Aer's expression fell to that dark look; his robes whisked around him as if he stood in the midst of a mad gale; his mouth moved silently, and his fingers worked as though playing an invisible stringed instrument of some sort; and then, after what couldn't have been more than a second, he roared, and the sound washed over everything. An impossibly-wild rush of water surged forth from the junction between Aer's hands. At first, it raced past the burning sail, missing, but Aer corrected its path by simply moving his hands, and the sail was doused. Tattered pieces of cloth were torn from the sail and carried by the torrent into the ocean. Aer let the water flow until all traces of the fire were gone, and then he let his hands part, and the water ceased to flow.

The sail had three fair-sized black-rimmed holes, and the bottom had detached itself from the mast, allowing the sail to flap in the breeze. Otherwise, it was unharmed. It would be repaired easily, assuming it suffered no more damage throughout the battle.

Aer stared at the sail for a few seconds, then turned around. His skin was slightly paler, his eyes a little tight around the edges, his mouth a grim line. Otherwise, he showed no signs of fatigue.

Calaman hastily reassessed his opinion of the sorcerer.

There was little time for congratulations, though, because at that moment, the ship rocked violently again. Calaman saw grappling hooks soar over the edge of the ship, some of them falling back down - onto their owners, Calaman hoped - but most of them digging into the wood. The ropes pulled taut as the pirates began to climb. Calaman spared a glance to ensure that there was no immediate danger to Eddora, and rushed to the edge of the ship to begin hacking the ropes apart. He went from rope to rope, slicing them away from the ship, but there were too many, and more kept appearing. He saw, too, that some of the boats were continuing around to the other side of the ships. There would be pirates on all sides. How could there be so many?

He whirled and startled himself upon coming face-to-face with a pirate who had managed to board.

Calaman had heard things about battle. He had heard that it always began with a plan, but once an individual soldier went into it, it became a case-by-case thing, a mad surge of adrenaline encompassing all else. He'd also heard that, in battle, his original plan would become more distant and unimportant, while he would find himself focusing entirely on the more immediate goal of preserving his own life while denying the enemy of his.

He'd heard other things, horrifying things, about the aftermath of battle - but he would not let himself think on that now. There were enemies about.

Using the adrenaline surge from the startlement of seeing the pirate, Calaman swung around him in a macabre mimic of his first meeting with Eddora. He put his sword - instead of his arm - across the man's chest, and ripped it back. The blade sliced through the pirate's thin cotton shirt, gouged into flesh. Calaman could feel, through the pommel, the grate of metal against bone. With the efficiency of a trained warrior, he whirled the man around, plunged his sword into the man's belly, flicked a dagger from its arm holster, and sliced the man's throat. Quick, if a bit messy. But the horrified expression in the man's eyes as he fell, Calaman knew suddenly, would haunt him forever. Clumsily he sheathed his sword, stared down at the body.

His first kill.

The man hadn't had a chance, Calaman realized. He'd been just as startled at seeing Calaman as Calaman had been at seeing him; he simply hadn't recovered as fast.

Another pirate shouted his way into Calaman's reverie.

"Draw your weapon, stranger!" the man bellowed, hefting a large sword that Calaman thought quite inappropriate for a man of such small stature - and an Al Bhed, no less.

He didn't know why he had sheathed his sword, but he didn't remember drawing it a second time. Nor, in fact, did he remember what he shouted back at the pirate, though he remembered shouting something. He remembered the smell of salt water, and the metallic smell - taste? - of blood. He remembered something hot and wet splashing across his face, and he remembered thinking, Messy. That was messy. I must be more careful.

((This might be a little clumsy, because I'm retyping the post after accidentally losing it. I'll try to rework it appropriately, though.))

He remembered ducking the wild slash of a third pirate, remembered his sword again piercing flesh. He remembered a rush of violence, of pirate after pirate falling to his blade. He remembered face after face after face, clean-shaven, bearded, awash with greed, awash with rage, awash with blood, piercing into his soul, piercing into his heart, pierced straight through the forehead with a red-streaked short sword. He remembered thinking that it was like a dance, and that he was at the center of it - but he didn't want to be the center of it. He saw, at the edges of his consciousness, other men fighting other men, but it seemed that the vast majority of them came for him. Impossible. Illogical. But there they were, one and then another and then another. How could there be so many?

After what seemed, again, like an eternity, a pirate fell to Calaman's blade, and he hefted it to defend himself against another - but there was no other. By the prow, two men still struggled. The pirate was thrust over the edge, falling with a scream to the ocean below, and silence descended over the ship.

Calaman swayed precariously on his feet. He needed water. He tried to count the bodies around him. Fifteen? Sixteen? Had he killed all of these around him, or had there been other men helping him? How could he have killed so many? How could there have been so many?

He had only a tenuous grasp on his surroundings, now. For a time, it seemed he was alone in the universe, alone except for the bodies scattered around him. And then even those would fade, and he would be left with only this corpse, or that one, or this pool of blood, or that severed limb, or those entrails, spilt when he opened a man's belly.

His gorge rose, and he shook his head slowly. He needed water. Fifteen, sixteen - too many. Too many, dead on my blade.

Suddenly Aer was there, walking out of the haze. He was going from body to body, doing a cursory search of each before moving on to the next. He was searching for - what? Valuables? He didn't seem the type to rob the dead. Spying Calaman, Aer straightened and approached. Calaman counted three bodies that Aer had to step over to cross the distance of seven paces. Too many. Too many.

The black mage's skin was chalky, his eyes seeming unfocused. His hands, even hanging at his sides, were shaking badly.

"Calaman?" he said. He sounded for all the world like his usual self, if a little tense.

"How many?" Calaman asked dully.

"What?"

"How many did you kill?"

Aer's face fell, and he looked down at a body that lay between Calaman and himself. "Too many," he said quietly, in an eerie echo of Calaman's thoughts. "The boats, some of them, I... Every one that sank, all of the men in it..." He looked back up to Calaman's face, and for the barest of instants, Calaman was struck by whatever passed between them. Kindred, he thought blankly. We are kindred. We're not different at all. But, out of habit, he suppressed the thought.

"Calaman?"

He opened his eyes. He hadn't realized he'd closed them. His sword was impossibly heavy; he let it drop. It splashed into a bizarrely thick pool of blood, splattering the cold fluid across his legs and clanging loudly across the deck.

"Calaman, are you all right?"

The haze encroached over everything, again, except for Calaman and the blood on his hands - the blood all over him. He'd bathed in it, it seemed, and while he shied away from the blood on the deck, he could not shy away from that on his own body. A horrible fear gripped him, the fear of night terrors, the fear that wakes small children in the middle of the night, screaming with voiceless throats until they find their voices and summon their parents with hysterical shrieks. Calaman wrapped his arms around himself and shivered despite the balmy air, drew breath, and forced it through his contracted throat. He could not scream. The blood was on his hands, his arms, his face, his legs. The deaths of he knew not how many men were on his shoulders, pushing him down, down, down - and he could not scream. He could not scream. He could not scream.

He screamed.

The haze wavered. He remembered falling forward, remembered a startled expression on Aer's face, remembered being caught in arms clothed in blue cloth that was black with blood, remembered the feel of the cold, wet fabric against his face. He remembered Aer's urgent shout for help.

And he remembered darkness.

((Apologies for such a long post, but I got on a roll, and... well. Aer's still free for the duration of the battle, so long as he sinks a few boats, as is everyone else. I made sure to isolate Calaman in his own little nightmare, so that everyone else is free to do as we please during the battle, so long as a) they don't interact with Calaman, and b) Aer spends at least some of his time sinking pirate longboats.))

((Yeah, they're Al Bhed, but they're also pirates, so there's a very real possibility that they may have recruited men of other races, so it's not that big of a concern.

And as for all the praise, I appreciate it, but give yourself some credit too, yeah? It's easier to make good RP posts when you have a good RP partner. And it helps that I've been writing for some ten odd years, and that I read like it's going out of style... razz

EDIT: I'm gonna color this one too, since there's lots of OOC intermissions. OOC is in dark red, while IC is in dark blue.

Without further ado, here's my five-page post. I included a little time-skip, but there's no reason we can't still do stuff during the same time frame.))

He was in a dark place, alone, naked, cold. Eyes - the eyes of fiends - stared at him from beyond the pall. He couldn’t see them, but he knew they were there, watching him, judging him, seeing him, hungering for him -

He lay in a pool of something, and with a dreadful certainty, he knew it was the blood of men - the men he’d killed aboard the ship. A shadow of the awful terror swept through him, and he convulsed, but he did not try to scream.

Instead, he let himself sink into the pool of blood, and he couldn’t breathe… but the eyes were gone. He let himself sink further and further down into the blood. Nothing could be worse than knowing that those fiends were watching him. Nothing. So he sank deeper. Impossibly deep, where it had been a puddle only moments before… The weight of the blood grew above him, like sinking deep into the ocean. The weight compressed his lungs, pushed the air out of him. He couldn’t breathe. The weight of the blood was crushing him.

But at least the eyes were gone.

~

((I just couldn’t hold myself back while writing this scene and had to follow it all the way through, so I hope it’s not a terrible problem that Ed isn’t present. (Or at the very least, isn’t saying anything here.) Perhaps she can be conferring with Yalan, or something of that sort, since no one could really know when Calaman would awake. I did make a few references to actions Eddora has apparently taken, but I thought they were vague enough that they didn’t really constitute Grand Theft Character. I hope you’ll agree, but if not, the post can be easily reworked.

By the way, can you spot the Shakespeare reference in the following post? blaugh ))

~

“I should’ve realized his age would end up being a problem sooner or later,” Aer was muttering. “It stands to reason that no matter how skilled he is, he’s not really all that experienced. He just hasn’t had time to go out and rack up a bunch of kills.”

“Mm,” came the smooth - smooth like oil, rather than silk - voice of the summoner Calaman remembered as Oebr. “And are you, my lord guardian and black mage, more experienced in the art of killing?”

Aer was silent. Calaman wanted to strike Oebr, but he couldn’t see the self-righteous prig. He couldn’t see anything, nor could he move, in fact. For a bizarre, horrified moment, he thought his eyes were covered in blood. Then he realized that he must have fainted, and he simply hadn’t recovered yet. He wondered at the strange paralysis he seemed to be suffering, but he was not yet conscious enough to dwell on it.

“I’ve killed before,” Aer said quietly, “but never on such a scale as I had to do today.”

“Murder?” breathed the female guardian of Oebr - Yachesa. She sounded like a girl eager to hear a bedtime story.

“Nothing so base as that,” Aer snapped. Calaman felt something warm and wet - Blood! he thought frantically - laid across his forehead.

“That warm cloth…” Yachesen began, and Calaman wasn’t surprised when his sister seemed to interrupt him.

“…won’t do…”

“…much good…”

“…for a man…”

“…who is in…”

“…good health.”

Aer huffed. “It won’t hurt anything, either. Is there a reason you’re showing such interest in the welfare of Lady Eddora’s guardian?”

Oebr’s tone was hurt, but Calaman suspected it was an act. “I am merely too full of the milk of human kindness. I did not expect that a further reason would be required.”

Again, the silence from Aer, but this silence was charged with irritation, rather than embarrassment.

“But,” Oebr continued, and Calaman could picture the man shrugging apologetically, “if it is your wish that I leave you alone with your charge, I will do so. Yachesen, Yachesa - come. There is yet work to be done if this ship is to survive the rest of the journey to Besaid.” A soft rustling of cloth, and then another long silence. This was yet another kind of silence - the silence of a solitary man, or at the least, a man who thought himself alone with his thoughts.

After a time, Calaman heard Aer move. He must be on a bed or cot, he decided, as feeling crept back into his body, and he sensed the sheets beneath him. There was a trickle from the cloth running sideways across his forehead. In a few seconds, it would reach his ear. The area was warm; he must be in one of the cabins. He tried to move, experimentally; he thought his toes curled, but he wasn’t certain. Clearly, nothing else moved.

“An insidious man, that one,” Aer muttered as if to Calaman. “D’you know, I’m sure he’s up to something. He’s got a look about him that makes it obvious he’s up to no good. I can’t for the life of me guess at what he wanted with you, though.” After a short pause, Aer snorted. “Overconfident pup that you are! You did a fine job in battle, but look what you put us through afterward! And you’d better thank Eddora, you know; this is her cabin.” He laughed. “Though I bet she’ll have you on the floor if you should still be abed by nightfall.”

“Water,” Calaman gasped. He’d been trying to say it for a short while now, but the word had finally emerged. “Water… Aer, water.”

There was a silence, and then a hasty shuffling. He felt hands maneuvering him into a half-sitting position, and then a flask was placed to his lips. Aer tilted the flask, and a slow trickle of water flowed into Calaman’s mouth. He worked his throat, and managed to swallow some of the water.

All of a sudden, his eyes opened. The room was not brightly lit, but he was dazed by the abrupt light nonetheless, and it took him a moment to recover. He lifted his arm, intending to take the flask, but his fingers felt large and thick, and he didn’t trust himself to hold the thing.

“What - happened?”

“You passed out,” Aer said, grinning. Calaman couldn’t tell what the grin meant. Mocking? Amusement? …Sympathy? “Killed yourself a bloody host of those damnable pirates, you did, but… As soon as the battle was over, I started searching the bodies like any good scumbag should. I spotted you, and came over to ask where Eddora was; seems she ran off and got herself a piece of the action, but I wasn’t there to see it. But before I could ask you, you started mumbling. Asked me how many men I’d… how many men I’d killed.” He’d paused because his voice had broken. He swallowed now, and continued. “Anyway, you passed out. Made a bloody scene of it, too, screaming like Sin itself was devouring you from the inside out. To be honest, for a second I thought some crafty pirate had shot you in the back.”

“That’s enough,” Calaman said, working his jaw to try and regain some ability to speak smoothly. “At least I know what happened after…” He shuddered. All of that blood. All of those bodies. Too many bodies. “…Aer?”

“Yeah?”

Calaman paused. He didn’t know why he wanted to ask, but the question would not rest inside him.

“How many men did I…?”

Aer shrugged. “I counted about…” He paused, watching Calaman for a second, then shrugged again. “Twelve. I counted about twelve pirates you might have killed. And two of them I’m doubtful about,” he added.

He was lying, and badly, but Calaman thought he preferred this answer to whatever the truth may be. At the very least, it told him one thing: Whatever had passed between them in the aftermath of the battle, it had secured a bond between them that was much closer than obligation - and much more genuine. With a start, he realized that the first clue of this had been present since he’d awoken: The mere fact that it was Aer watching over him while he lay unconscious. Eddora might have assigned Aer the task of course, but at least he didn’t seem to disdain it. Maybe this meant he and Aer would stop bristling at each other every time they made eye contact.

Calaman could hope.

“Thanks,” he said, both for the help and for the lie. He flexed his fingers and took the flask, tossing back another swallow of water. He worked his toes a little, decided he could stand, and swung his legs out over the floor. When he first stood, he stumbled. Aer put an arm across his chest and shook his head.

“You’re not getting up yet,” he said sternly. This tone, coming from Aer, made Calaman laugh so hard that he fell back onto the cot. Aer pushed him back down.

“I’m not watching over you for my health, you know,” Aer muttered. He reclined in his chair, sighing. “Eddora’s orders. Come to think of it, I should probably let her know you don’t need to be Sent just yet.” He started to get up, but Calaman lifted a hand to gesture for him to wait.

“Thanks,” he murmured.

“You’ve said as much,” Aer told him a little wryly. “Don’t tell me you’re going senile as well as invalid?”

“a**,” Calaman laughed. “Go on, then, leave me here, sick and possibly dying -”

“Neither of which is even remotely true -”

“- to go and report to the Lady.”

Aer remained standing, but leaned against the doorframe, watching Calaman. “Why do you always call her ‘Lady?’ She’s not here, and neither is anyone else. I certainly don’t care what you call her, as long as it isn’t derogatory.”

“I don’t say ‘Lady’ out of obligation,” Calaman said with a shrug. “I say it out of respect.”

“Pah,” Aer said, but amiably. “Why give respect to someone that hasn’t earned it? I never call anyone ‘Lord’ or ‘Lady’ or ‘Sir’ or ‘Madam’ unless they have earned that token of respect.”

“Not something I would expect of a noble,” Calaman said, his eyebrows rising in genuine surprise. “I thought your type heaped praise on anyone with the right amount of money.”

“My family hasn’t been a noble family for very long,” Aer said with a dry smile as he pushed himself off of the wall and turned back to the door, “so we still hold onto some morals, and one of those morals is that money isn’t everything. Social station, perhaps; power, probably; but money, no.”

“Well, you’ve earned my respect,” Calaman said, “sir.”

All Aer said before he left was, “And you mine, sir.”

Alone with his thoughts, Calaman marveled at what had happened. He had killed a handful of men - several handfuls, most likely, though he might never get an accurate count, now - and thus played a key part of saving the ship; he had forged a friendship of sorts with the one man who he would never have expected to befriend.

Now, all that was left was to recover enough to get out of this accursed bed.

~

((I was sorely tempted to continue this scene, but I figured that after five pages on Microsoft Works, I’d written enough; not to mention the fact that this is a pretty good stopping point; and also not to mention that after five pages, it would be outright rude to go any further without allowing you a chance to interrupt. blaugh

As far as the Shakespeare reference, if you still haven’t found it, I’ll give you a hint: It’s from Macbeth. biggrin

And since it's been a while, here's a snatch from Luseik's party! xd ))

~

Keskes jumped nearly a foot into the air as another thunderbolt crashed through the darkened sky. Satiyen growled softly, though no one knew just what at. Luseik huddled silently in his cloak, head bowed against the rain. Together, they pushed stubbornly through the Thunder Plains.

"What of Anna?" Keskes murmured to Satiyen, his voice shaky. The constant lightning and thunder was grating on his nerves, Satiyen could see. Pity bubbled deep within him, somewhere, but he ignored it.

"We have received no word. I suspect this is part of why Luseik has picked up the pace; he hurries not toward the pilgrimage, but toward Besaid."

Keskes frowned, jumped at another bolt, and shook his head quickly. "Is there any chance she's been hurt?"

Satiyen shrugged. "There is no way of knowing. We will find out when we get there, or sooner, should someone send us word."

Keskes yelped as a particularly loud crash of thunder roared through the Plains.

"Luseik may be looking forward to seeing his girl," he muttered, "but I'm looking forward to a nice, warm bed, a hot meal, and some bleeding peace and quiet."

"When you find it," Satiyen replied ominously, "enjoy it, because it will not last."

((And now, without further ado, I leave the RP in your capable hands, Lady. *bows*))

((As you yourself said, I prefer long posts, so no worries. And on that note, as long as you say you don't mind, I'll just keep right up with the ridiculously long posts. xd

The Macbeth reference was when Oebr commented that "I am merely too full of the milk of human kindness". In Macbeth (spoilers avoided), when Lady Macbeth forms her plan and decides that Macbeth is too much of a wuss to carry it out without her help, she comments,

"...yet do I fear thy nature;
It is too full o’ the milk of human kindness
To catch the nearest way..."

In any case... Hm. Though I don't think this post will be very long. x.x))

Aer's eyes went wide as Eddora approached. She was clearly very distraught. Somewhere in the back of his head was a little voice telling him that, if he comforted her, she might be obliged to render him a few favors... But he angrily suppressed that voice, opened the door, and led her to a chair in the room, ignoring Calaman's astonished inquiries as to the situation.

Searching for the waterskin, he saw that Calaman was holding it - and it was empty. He cursed under his breath. Well, magical water would do as well, here. He was nearly burned out as it was, but this much oughtn't be a problem. He snatched up the overturned flask, muttered an incantation, and filled the flask with a trickle of crystal clear water from his fingertip.

"Here," he said, holding the flask to her lips. "Take a drink, and calm down. What happened? You were fine when I left you to tend to Calaman..."

A loud noise startled him, and he whirled to see Calaman hanging with all his weight on the door.

"Get back in the bed," Aer snapped.

"The Lady needs it mo -"

"She's upset, not ill," Aer returned on the tail end of Calaman's words, "now get back into the bloody bed!"

Chastened, Calaman returned to a seat at the edge of the bed. He turned tight, worried eyes on Eddora as Aer returned to his efforts to get her to drink.

((Ususally it just happens when I find myself bored, and without any readily available original writing ideas, so I pick a roleplay that I'm currently involved in, and pound out an absurdly long post while offline. I think the longest roleplay post I've ever done that with was... on a Kingdom Hearts roleplay, and it was a ten-page flashback. Page numbers measured in Microsoft Works terms, of course, which I think is similar to Microsoft Office. Suffice to say it was big.

I think I've already said that this is probably the best roleplay I'm doing at the moment. I keep wanting to jack up the level of action; I have to remind myself that falling action is necessary, razz ))

It was his fault, of course. He'd carelessly thrown himself into the battle, and then, faced with the horror of what he'd done, driven himself into a state of illness. Idiot. And now she was deprived of a guardian. Idiot!

He slid off the bed and prostrated himself before her.

"I wish to apologize -" He began, but Aer nudged him with his foot.

"Get up," Aer said flatly.

"I wish to apologize," Calaman began again, stiffy. "Not only has my reckless behaviour caused you distress, I have also incapacitated myself as your guardian as a result. Therefore, my Lady, you have my humblest and most sincere apologies for the wrongs I have done you, and my vow to never make the same mistake again, if you will demean yourself so far as to forgive me."

Aer rolled his eyes. "Bloody drama..."

((Calaman is eeeeemooooo... xd ))

((I would suggest a time skip now, to allow for everyone to recover without having to write it in. To facilitate that, I did one of my long posts. razz I don't think it's as long as some, though; only about a page on Works.

I originally had ideas for this to be a post that led into some sort of tragedy or cataclysm, like the revelation of bandits besieging the village, or a plague, or something along those lines, but I figured it’s too soon after our pirate adventure for yet another ‘rising action’ sequence. Besides, I had plans of that persuasion for Kilika, so perhaps it’s best that I did this one the way I did. razz

Note: It is called the ‘Cloister of Trials’, isn’t it? Bah, the temple thing.))

((*Xemnas voice* Indeed. razz ))

Valefor dove, an unnatural shriek rending the air. Satiyen dove out of its way. Keskes, frantically canting a second-level thunder spell, stumbled over his own words and then yelped as Valefor summoned up an Energy Cannon and released it. The blast encompassed the whole room; Keskes was thrown against a wall and crumpled, unconscious; Luseik was hit full on in the chest, stumbled backward, and fell. He staggered to his feet, his face a study in rage as he prepared to try to heal Keskes. Only Satiyen escaped the effects of the attack, deftly dodging the waves of power and snaking in close to the birdlike creature. He delivered a crippling slash to the aeon's left wing and rolled away when Valefor retaliated with its talons, furiously shrieking.

Luseik bellowed the last few words of his incantation, and Keskes moaned. Slowly, the child rose, recovered his bearings, and began to cast one of the spells he had himself created only weeks before: Ravel. The incantation was spoken slowly, in a low voice, with a sibilant hissing undertone. Keskes closed his eyes and continued to cant.

"Luseik!" Satiyen shouted. "Try Holy!"

"I haven't the strength," Luseik called back. "I had to revive Keskes. Just stall, Satiyen - I think he's casting Ravel."

"Right," Satiyen replied, and rolled under a vicious strike from Valefor's talons. The bird was furious now that it had been grounded by the injury to its wing. Crippled, but furious nonetheless. Satiyen struck at the talon when it went for him again, but at the last moment, Valefor withdrew and pecked ferociously at him instead. The feint was successful, and the bird ripped the flesh of Satiyen's arm. The Ronso howled in pain and rage and leapt back away from Valefor. Seeing that his guardian was in danger, Luseik ran forward, drew a small dagger - really more decorative than anything else - and threw it at Valefor. It whizzed harmlessly past the aeon's head, but it successfully distracted Valefor, which, after all, had been the point. The shrieking aeon stomped toward Luseik, who raised his arms in another canting gesture. The simple incantation was complete almost immediately, and a translucent, glimmering barrier faded into existence around him. Valefor pecked at it; some of the force of the blow reached Luseik, but it was negligible.

"Im Daos est vietat d'everal - est te!" Keskes shouted, and Valefor turned, curiously, to face the boy. It regarded him curiously. At first, it seemed like the spell hadn't done anything. Keskes stood there, defiantly facing Valefor, and just as the bird took a step toward him, it stopped again, tilted its head briefly, and then shrieked and began to flail. After a few more seconds, it became apparent that its good wing was... unraveling. It was as if the aeon was a doll woven of nothing but threads, and Keskes' spell had seized on a loose threads and tugged. Before long, the entire wing was gone, and the 'threads' were flailing wildly around Valefor. Satiyen roared, leapt onto Valefor's back - unnoticed, it seemed, by the screeching aeon - and plunged his hand-and-a-half sword all the way through Valefor's body. The blade burst from Valefor's chest with a sound like biting into an apple, and Keskes paled and looked away. Valefor gave one final shriek, and then collapsed, its head having been unraveled. The rest of the body unraveled, and Satiyen dropped nimbly to the floor, cradling his injured arm.

Luseik, panting, straightened and adjusted his robes. "It's almost finished," he said quietly. "Then we can rest. Come. We're not yet done here."

Satiyen nodded; Keskes drew closer to Luseik, and, after Luseik healed Satiyen's wound, the three proceeded forward.

((Not sure why I bothered typing all that... But it was still fun. biggrin

Hey, Yalan's 'he' isn't Luseik, is 'he'?))

Calaman paled a little at Eddora's statement, but Aer just grinned and put an extra spring into his step.

"So, what do you think, Eddora?" he said as his eyes panned around the island with the interest of a tourist. "Are we going to go straight to the Cloister, or do a little sightseeing?"

"Someone seems awfully cheerful today," Calaman snorted.

"Just making up for the void of cheer that is Calaman," Aer retorted without missing a beat.

Calaman rolled his eyes, and in his boredom (though, of course, he was still keeping his eyes on a swivel as usual), released a dagger from its wrist-sheath - with a brief wrenching of his gut, he realized it was the same dagger with which he'd killed a man on the ship - and began to play the dagger across his fingers like a magician with a coin.

((Don't you have to fight the aeons in order to attain them, or have I made a horrible mistake? eek

I'm not itching to get Luseik involved with another party; I was just asking for clarification. No worries, go on as you were planning.))

Luseik paused in brushing off his clothing as his thumb caught on a tear he hadn't noticed. "Damn," he muttered. "We'll have to find a tailor. Satiyen, are you all right? That wasn't a very thorough healing. How are you holding up?"

"Fine, Luseik," the Ronso grunted absently, wiping off his blade. Since the aeon hadn't bled, the only things to get off the blade were perspiration-drenched feathers. "It will heal naturally in time. I'll be fine by the time we reach Kilika."

"A more pressing concern," Keskes pointed out, "is making progress. Look outside."

Luseik looked up from the tear in his robe and saw the ship in the distance, and a smattering of oddly-colored specks between the temple and the ship.

"If we tarry any more," Keskes said, "Satiyen may get some justification for hurrying."

Luseik grunted. "Well," he said flatly, "shall we find out how quickly that ship can set sail?"

"Let me guess," Keskes muttered, "Ravel."

"Well, it hasn't been that long since the fight. You should still have access to the matter, correct?"

Keskes snorted. "It's an aeon, Luseik. I've never used Ravel on an aeon... How do we know whether it's even made of matter?"

Luseik shrug. "Ravel worked on it; therefore, it's made of matter. Come, or we'll be overtaken."

((Don't worry, you're not yet meant to understand all of that. Not to mention, the workings of a spell are hardly plot-central.))

~

Aer and Calaman followed Eddora wordlessly, Aer's eyes roving over the foliage, Calaman's over the populace. He was finding it difficult to maintain a safe 'sphere' of distance between their party and the natives; he didn't want to draw his weapon, and Eddora probably wouldn't encourage it, but at the same time, his usual stern looks and dangerous stance didn't seem to be cutting it, as far as warding off strangers was concerned.

After a time, Calaman noticed that a number of heads were turning away from them; it wasn't long before he saw why. Coming from the direction of the temple was an interesting group: The summoner (Calaman realized with a start that his party was not, apparently, at the forefront of the pilgrimages) was dressed very eccentrically; summoner's robes, to be sure, but of colors that even Calaman would not have synthesized into one outfit. Alongside the summoner strode two guardians: One, a boy, and obviously a mage from the eldritch intelligence in his expression, as well as his utter lack of a weapon (except, Calaman noticed with sudden perception, that the way he carried himself made it obvious to Calaman that there was a dagger concealed in his left sleeve). The other guardian was a Ronso; Calaman had never seen a Ronso, but all of the tales he'd heard were confirmed by this one: Tall, well-muscled, fearsome. For an instant, the Ronso's eyes met his own, and there was - recognition. Not the recognition of two individuals, but the recognition of two warriors. Calaman found himself humbled - he found himself wondering why such a recognition would exist in the eyes of a Ronso, a feared warrior, in relation to a boy who'd only ever been in a single battle. Then the Ronso's eyes moved away, and the connection was broken. Calaman blinked, slightly confused, and more than a little curious. More than anything, he was simply unsettled.

((Stalling post, maybe? sweatdrop ))

((I could have sworn..... crying Damn, I must be thinking of FFX-2. Crap. Welllll... Ummmmm... Suggestions?))

Rising from his own barely remembered prayer gesture, Luseik stepped aside so as not to block the woman's path to the temple. "Summoner Luseik, of the Al Bhed." He wondered briefly if she would react as most people did upon learning that an Al Bhed had chosen the path of a summoner of Yevon, but out of politeness, did not regard her too closely.

((Maybe I can salvage this without simply editing a post. sweatdrop ))

"These are my guardians, the Ronso warrior Satiyen and Kilikan black mage Keskes. If, as I expect, you are here on your pilgrimage," he said, "I urge caution. The fayth are full of unrest, and I faced more than just one Trial within this Cloister." His two guardians stopped as they realized Luseik was pausing to speak. An impatient expression stole over the Ronso's face, but the black mage seemed more or less disinterested. In fact, Calaman noted with some confusion, the boy was muttering under his breath and performing odd half-gestures with his fingers. Practicing a spell?

Aer's brows furrowed. "What are you talking about? Fiends?"

"No," Luseik said with a slow shake of his head, "no. I'm talking about aeons."

((There. Problem sol... erm, mitigated.))

((EDIT: I'm going to add some more, seeing's how I've now got a more solid and, er, believable idea as to why there was an aeon that needed to be fought. So I think I really can salvage this blunder. razz ))

Aer narrowed his eyes. "The fayth explained nothing of it?" he asked bluntly.

"The fayth do not normally speak in tongues that can be understood by humans," Luseik said mildly.

"There was no obvious explanation?" Calaman mused; in his reverie, he forgot to add his usual terms of address for the summoner. Luseik didn't appear to mind.

"I expect it was a fiend," the Ronso said suddenly. The gravelly quality of his voice didn't surprise Calaman, but Aer's eyebrows rose visibly. "Some sort of shapeshifter, maybe."

"Oh, come off it," Keskes said. Calaman was surprised; the mage looked and sounded even younger than Calaman himself. "A fiend in the Cloister of Trials? What possible reason could there be for something like that?"

Satiyen shrugged. "Luseik said that the fayth are full of unrest. Perhaps if we learn what is causing that 'unrest', we will learn why fiends are able to dwell within the Cloister."

Calaman elbowed Aer just as he was about to say something else, and then turned his eyes on Eddora. At the same time, Aer elbowed Calaman right back, and said obliviously, "What do you think, Eddora?"