A Melting of a Heart Chapter 15
Reminiscence
By Key Mima
Dear diary, or makeshift piece of paper serving as my diary for the moment,
Sunev stroked the tip of the quill boredly as she wrote down the past few days' events on the back of a large shaving of bark.
It's actually been a while since we've done anything. We came back to the Dark Ages. I don't know why nothing has happened, but we're all just sitting around, talking with the locals and having parties at night and things. The people seem to be getting along much better with each other now that their families have been killed and their world destroyed. I guess it takes that sort of a thing to get over grudges.
And I've gotten Magus to actually acknowledge Alfador, who's been following him around for two days straight. Magus would just pretend he wasn't there, but his face would be all ashen and solemn, and I was finally just like "Hey, would you pick that poor cat up? It's been waiting years to see you." And he just started laughing, and Alfador jumped up on him. The little kitten's been on his shoulders ever since.
Magus and I have been getting along great, surprisingly. Well, there's always the fighting, but I think we both enjoy that, in a sick way. We'll always just bitch at each other and then grin, and there's this understanding between us. I think maybe that we were meant
"What are you doing now?" Magus asked, coming into the little tent-home that they were using. Alfador bounded off his shoulders into Sunev's lap, extending his claws at just the right time to pierce her thigh. Sunev cried out and detatched him slowly, putting him on the "shorts" part of her lap, so that at least she had a layer of cloth to protect herself.
"I was just writing a journal entry-type thing," she said, putting the piece of bark under an animal fur rug on the floor although it was unfinished.
"Oh yeah?" Magus asked, opening a small clay pot, pulling out a dried fish, and waving it enticingly at Alfador. The little violet cat ran for his master and friend, and jumped for the little silver snack. "What were you writing about?"
"Just about the stuff going on... I don't really have any juicy secrets to keep to myself anymore," she muttered, slipping in a grin.
"I bet you do."
"Like what?" Sunev narrowed her eyes intently at the man before her, but she also smiled in anticipation at what he could think up.
"Well... there was your torrid affair with Dalton. You could write a novel about that."
Sunev burst into laughter, immediately reaching out to punch, prod, and pull hair. "Like hell I'd have an affair with him! You're nuts!"
Magus snickered and pulled away before she could reach him, and went back to watching Alfador devour the fish.
"I wish I could have seen him fly through that black gate when Crono and the guys beat him while I was dead," she stated, smiling at the thought. "Everything is so much more funny when it's real life, not a game." She giggled insanely for a moment, then turned away to drink some fresh water from a pot, and offered it to Magus.
"Eh?" Magus turned to her, taking the offered pot and drinking deeply. "When did Crono beat Dalton while you were gone?"
"Well, I never saw it, but in the game, Dalton comes back and takes Crono and everyone prisoner and... you need to..." She paused to look up at him. "It didn't happen?"
"I didn't hear about it, but you could ask Crono, just in case, I suppose."
"I think I will."
Sunev peeked her head out of the shelter to find Frog, talking to a young woman with blue hair and bright green eyes. Sunev grinned at their chemistry.
"Pardon me a moment," she said, approaching them, "but may I steal away Glenn for a moment?"
"Oh, of course," the girl said with a polite bow. "I was just on my way."
"Thank you," Sunev replied. She then turned to Frog, who was looking over his shoulder at the girl. "Hey, wake up," she said with a chuckle. "I just had a question."
"Whatever you wish to know, I shalt answer it as well as I can."
Sunev grinned crookedly. "Yeah. Well, anyway, I just had a little problem.. Well, I was just thinking that, umm.."
"Yes?" Frog cocked his head to the side, listening to her as well as he could without thinking about that girl again.
"Dalton never showed up, did he?" she said flatly, knowing that the answer was negative.
"Dalton never what?"
"He never showed up, pronounced himself king and whisked you guys away in the Blackbird?"
"Quite.. not." He looked at her oddly, his attention now fully focused on her. She let out a forced laugh and then thanked him, running back to the tent.
"I'm guessing I was right?" Magus asked when she came into the shelter looking like a red balloon with a face on it.
"I wonder why he didn't come..." she mumbled, returning to her fur mat.
"Nothing is like your game anymore, remember? I don't think you died in your game."
"You're right," she admitted, and then returned to her journal entry.
The next day, after a particularly late party, Sunev woke from her pleasant slumber startled by a noise from the direction of the commons. She groaned as she realized what it was, Dalton's belated announcement that he was now king. She washed her face with water from a pot, changed her clothes, and brushed her hair before she went out to see the source of the commotion, although she could already clearly hear his voice.
There was the Blackbird, hovering oddly over the valley which had become the village commons, and as she approached them, he looked up after blasting Frog, Crono, and Ayla once more. He saw her and his jaw dropped, his finger still pointed at the party but his gaze fixated on her. Slowly, the hand came to point at her.
"You're alive?" he asked incredulously.
"Do I look dead?" Sunev asked, coming up behind Crono and flashing Dalton a grin. Where was Magus?
"I suppose not. Well, that's certainly odd.. Hn. Well, I have something new to announce now! Not only am I the new and deserving King of Zeal, but I now take this woman to be my bride! Come along, Sunev."
"Bride?" she sputtered.
"Of course. I planned it that way anyway, until I learned that you were dead. but luckily, that was false! So now, things will go as planned." He gave her a prim smile, and then motioned to two of his guards, who grabbed her, and then knocked out Crono and the others.
She would have fought them, but this sounded too interesting to miss. She smiled amiably at the guards as they escorted her onto the Blackbird.
They had had an argument the other night about her boredom, and she had said that she was so bored in this place that she would do anything to have a bit of fun. She had even suggested jumping off the Epoch while it was flying. But he didn't think she would go as far as this, putting herself in danger.
The halls were long, and metal. Just as he remembered it from when he had visited the Blackbird in his youth. He didn't know where she would be imprisoned, which she probably was, but he could guess that it wouldn't be far from Dalton. And Dalton was probably in the center somewhere.
Knowing it wouldn't make much sense to walk around the halls with all the robots floating around, patrolling, he grasped onto a ladder in the wall, entering the venthilation shaft in the ceiling. He learned this trick from his sister, who used to play hide and go seek with him while their mother conducted business on board. He found it easiest to hide at the far east of the ship, in a dead end shaft, although it was always easy for Schala to find him. But he had never wanted to leave her for long, anyway. He would hide there and she would go there immediately, and they'd hug, and she'd tickle him...
Ignoring the urge to go head east, he maneuvered his way with only slight hesitation for the middle of the ship.
It had become quite dull, crawling around on his knees, until he crawled nearly head-on into that frog, Glenn.
"Dear Lord!" the creature cried out, shielding his face with his arms. His weapons were missing, as was his gear. Magus took one look at him, and decided not to bother.
"Excuse me."
He pushed his way past them, heading steadily for the room that he suspected Dalton was in.
"What exactly art thou doing, Magus?"
"I'm getting Sunev. Haven't you thought of it yet?"
"Of course we have. But, to our teen, we need weapons, and those have been stolen from us."
"I see. Well, then I'll just have to take him out on my own, I suppose."
"Not so! We will go with you, to help," Glenn stated, with a wince. "But we shall need to acquire our possessions again."
The little spiky kid, Crono, decided to add his 2 GP.
"Look, of you could wait just a little while, we'd really like to fight with you. We have a reason for.. revenge, too."
Magus stared at Crono until he began to look uncomfortable, and then said, "You have ten minutes. Take any longer and I'll leave without you, and you'll miss your chance."
Crono's mouth dropped open, and he looked to the frog. It was nearly impossible, especially not with the girl around, Magus decided, looking at Marle's thin, weak form. But if they really needed revenge that badly, they wouldn't waste any time.
"I'll be waiting here."
Crono, always the resilient boy, nodded firmly, and started off in the opposite direction down the shaft. And Magus just sat back and relaxed. Maybe he'd give them eleven, just to be nice.
.