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I'm a little teapot, short and shout… Here is my handle, here is my spout…. Ack, I'm going insane!
….Wait, I do own the "mysterious stranger whose name shall not be revealed yet." I wonder when I'll name him… and what. For now, he's just 'the half-elf.'
Eh heh…. Yes, it's that time again. The time when Sekana is too lazy to find and answer her reviews. You know what that means, right? Exactly! She's finally updating another chapter. The good outweighs the bad, right? Hehe.
It was the fourth day of the increasingly tiring journey, and everyone had learned by now not to ask what breakfast was. In short, they really didn't want to know.
This was the start of another long march, and none of them were too thrilled. Despite the conditions of travel, though, they managed to get along without much in the way of complaints. Even Lloyd had dropped his usual attitude, and was walking beside Colette and glancing at her fondly once in a while.
"Hey! Look at the pretty cloud!" Colette gasped, giggling and pointing at the sky.
The sudden noise caused half the group to draw their weapons, and the other half to suddenly spin around to see what was happening. Everyone breathed sighs of relief as they saw the blonde girl showing Lloyd the shapes in the clouds.
Yuan, Kratos, Raine, and Regal turned back around to continue walking in silence. Sheena had dropped back from Yuan's side to find out what was so great about the clouds. Genis and Presea, as well, had been intrigued enough to slow down to walk beside Lloyd and Colette.
Zelos was walking at the tail end of the group, relishing the fact that he was being ignored. At least no one seemed suspicious. Even Yuan had seemed to relax a little after he found Zelos sound asleep the last night.
He listened noncommittally to what the excited group members ahead of him were saying.
"Doesn't that one look like a bunny rabbit?" Colette's voice rang out.
"Yeah! And doesn't that one look like Gnome? You can see the outline of the ribbon and everything." Sheena laughed.
"All I see is a huge bowl of beef stew…." Lloyd said blankly, his stomach rumbling in accompaniment.
The others laughed, but Zelos tuned them out as he looked towards the sky himself. He didn't see cute fluffy bunnies, nor did he see Summon Spirits. And he most certainly did not see food.
Just like in his dream, he saw death. The bunny rabbit was slowly morphing into a wolf-like creature, ears getting pointier. Gnome thinned quickly to turn into Yuan, the edges of the ribbons becoming wings. The bowl of stew seemed to emit a mysterious mist, slowly but steadily.
Zelos shook his head rapidly to free himself from what he was sure were hallucinations, staring instead at his feet, which had for some reason stopped in their tracks. He stared at the ground for a second, lost in thought.
"Zelos! Hurry up, it's almost time for lunch!" Sheena yelled back to him. The group was already more than ten feet from him. Had he blanked out for that long?
He hastily jogged back up to them, walking beside Presea, on the outskirts of the group. He noticed that Genis didn't even give him a 'look.' Maybe he was gaining some favor after all.
Rising to his feet after the sustenance, Kratos took his position at the head of the group, wondering how far they had gone today. He had to resist the urge to yawn-he had to look strong for the rest of them. I mean, fifty days was a long time, and the group was already getting rather sluggish.
By the end of the day, they had arrived at a well-trodden dirt path, which they would be traveling along henceforth.
"What? Is that…. That's the path!" Kratos exclaimed.
"Uh… yeah?" Lloyd shrugged. "So?"
"It was supposed to take twenty more days to get here!" The auburn haired man paced back and forth wildly. "It must be the evil forces taking control of the land, distorting space and distance to form a chaotic change in the planet!"
"Give me that map, Kratos." Yuan snapped, and Kratos stopped muttering long enough to oblige, and then continued his feverish pacing.
"I can't believe this!" The red-haired angel suddenly yelled. "Kratos, I told you! I told you I should have been the one to read the map!"
Everyone quickly rushed over to where Yuan was frantically pointing at the map, explaining to Kratos how he was supposed to calculate distance.
Eventually, he managed to figure out that, while they were right on course, it would take only a mere four more days to reach their destination.
Yuan could be heard screeching "FIFTY DAYS? FIFTY?" for the next hour of the march. After that, he took a few deep breaths, finally steadied himself, and promptly forgot about the whole instance.
Yuan attempted to pull his cloak closer to his body to shut out the cold, but then remembered that Zelos didn't wear style-inhibiting garments like that.
'What a fool. Sacrificing comfort for style was never something I would approve of.'
But then he remembered his beautiful glave, with double sided blades, and gave a sigh. Apparently, he had something in common with Zelos, if not much. He gave no more thought to the matter, though, as he did not really want to have any more similarities to the ex-Chosen.
He wondered vaguely why it was so cold all of a sudden, and then, narrowing his eyes again the biting winds, remembered that it was always cold and stormy near the half-elf's fortress.
"We're not anywhere near there… so how could he be still affecting the weather?" He muttered to himself.
He jumped as someone's hand rested on his shoulder, spinning around and drawing his sword. Steel met steel, and he found himself staring at Kratos, who at least had a fast enough reaction to counter with his own weapon.
"Er… sorry." Yuan said quietly, embarrassed that he had not noticed his friend being awake and up. "I was a bit nervous."
"I can see that." Kratos sighed resignedly. "You always were a little paranoid. I should know better than to sneak up on you like that."
Yuan sniffed at the mention of previous paranoia, and pretended he hadn't heard the last few sentences. Kratos gave a small smile, and sat down beside him, apparently noticing his companion's touchiness.
"The weather is getting worse, isn't it?" The auburn-haired man acknowledged. Yuan nodded.
"I think it has something to do with the half-elf's influence." Strands of red hair were blown into his face by what he guessed was an incoming storm, and he pushed them out of his face.
"We should get the others, and start moving now." Kratos suggested. "It's possible that if his power over the weather has extended, his other powers may have as well."
"We'll wake them quickly, and be on our way." Yuan agreed, moving to shake Sheena gently from sleep.
"There's a storm starting, and I want to stay clear of it." Kratos said simply, saving the details for on the road, and going to wake up Regal.
"Fine, don't tell me anything…" The blue-haired man mumbled in an irritated manner. He got up and stretched nonetheless.
Soon, they were all up, and Kratos and Yuan lead the group on the trail they had been following for days. Zelos was aching to know why this storm was so bad that they couldn't wait until morning to leave, but something told him he wasn't the only one who wanted to know. After all, he wanted to pride himself for being more patient than Lloyd, at least.
"Da- Kratos, why are you so serious about getting away from the storm? It didn't look that bad to me." The brunette swordsman said after only a few minutes, just like Zelos had predicted.
Yuan ended up answering for the hesitant Kratos. "We believe that it may be a sign of the half-elf's growing power."
"What? But how could he get that strong so fast? The last time we checked, he was near Meltokio, and we've already gone far enough from there to be out of his range!" Sheena exclaimed in doubt.
"Is that what you think, or what you want to think?" Kratos questioned gently, but gravely.
Sheena's face fell, but she seemed to see his point. "… I guess you're right, then."
"But that still doesn't explain how this guy got stronger just like that." Zelos said, snapping his fingers in way of explanation.
The rest of the party seemed a bit surprised that Zelos spoke (he himself wondered if they had started to forget his existence), but the majority nodded.
"Well, whatever happens, we should get to the Shadow Temple as fast as we can!" Lloyd said heroically, nearly stopping in his tracks to strike a pose before realizing that it would only stall them.
"Yes, that is the best choice in the matter." Kratos said slowly. His eyes betrayed the anxiousness that his toneless voice did not.
The group walked through the remaining hours of the night, and did not stop when the sun rose, nor when it reached the middle of the sky. The cold has subsided, and it appeared that they had left the storm behind. But after that, no one was inclined to rest easy, so they continued without even taking a lunch break.
By evening, though, when the stars came out and the sky darkened, they couldn't very well go on without at least a light supper. That was when they were faced with what little rations they had left. The only reason that most of them ate enough that night was due in part to the sacrifices of other group members.
Yuan was a Cruxis angel. Kratos was a Cruxis angel. Colette had been a Cruxis angel, and the effects of the transformation still lingered. The three gave up the chance to eat that night, claiming that their angelic bodies did not need to be nourished at all. Of course, it was necessary for rebuilding energy, especially when the group had been marching all day, but it was something they could do to help.
Lloyd and Zelos were not able to skip dinner, however, since it seemed the effects of the angelic forms had long since worn off in their case. Somehow, Zelos doubted that Lloyd had even stopped eating in the time that he was an angel—the typical Lloyd was always hungry.
The topic of the night watch arose, as it had to, and ended with Zelos volunteering to take the whole night. There had been odd looks shared between group members when he stepped up, but no one particularly wanted to stop him, so he got his wish.
He only hoped that it would not draw unnecessary attention to his different behavior, and his restless sleep. After all, they would not help him. They could not. And he wasn't keen on seeing what they would do if they found out the reason why he rarely slept anymore.
