Folgen Sie Ihrem Traum Chapter 7 (Seto/Téa, #03)
Title: Folgen Sie Ihrem Traum (Follow Your Dream) Chapter 7: The Pendant
Author: Crystal Rose of Pollux (rose_of_pollux)
Claim: Seto Kaiba/Téa Gardner (non-Kingdom Hearts claim)
Prompt: 03; Connected [coiled inseparably]
Warnings: PG13
Disclaimer: The characters aren't mine (expect for the OCs associated with the dance troupe) and the story is.
This chapter will be cross-posted to 20_cities, 30_hugs, 30_nights, and http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4336463/7/
“Don’t panic… whatever you do, do not panic,” Téa ordered herself. To panic would mean to dance out of step, which would not be tolerated. And aside from that, a wrong step would make her stand out; the last thing she wanted was for Bandit Keith to notice her.
Somehow, she managed to maintain her composure throughout the length of the show. Relieved that it was all over, Téa was barely listening to the praises that her colleagues were showering upon her.
“Aurus,” she said. “I need to speak to someone from the audience.”
“Against protocol,” Aurus informed her, quietly. “We’re not supposed to mingle with the audience except at special meet-and-greets; we’ll be having one in Chicago.”
“Chicago doesn’t work; there’s someone I need to meet right now.”
“Look, I’d gladly cover for you,” he said. “But my cousin wants to have a word with you right now…”
“Ah, there you are Miss Gardner!” said the elder Kayser, beaming as he had been the night he had invited her to join the troupe. “I knew it! I knew it all along! You’ll be the greatest! I just know that you’re going to learn all of the other dances just as well as you did with this one!”
“Other dances?” Téa asked, incredulously.
“You didn’t look over our whole website, did you?” asked Kayser, with a grin. “No two shows are ever the same.”
“How… wonderful…” Téa mumbled, and then she thought to herself, “Just when I think I’ve learned this routine down cold… I knew I should’ve done more research before I signed on.”
But she was only half-exasperated, for she had a wonderful time on that stage. She would’ve been far happier if it hadn’t been for the fact that Seto and Keith were somewhere in close proximity to each other.
Unobtrusively, she gathered her purse and sent Seto a quick email without even removing her handheld from the purse. Kayser didn’t even notice; he was leading her to the other dancers, who were all suddenly welcoming her with open arms. Even Hesper, who hadn’t said a word to her before, was congratulating her, as was Caerii, who also seemed impressed.
“Never would have guessed that you had it in you…” said Hesper, with a nod of approval.
“He’s right,” added Caerii. “Sorry we were so aloof; we honestly didn’t think that you’d last.”
“Hey-I’ve been telling them all along that you’d be great,” Aurus pointed out, not allowing himself to be forgotten so easily.
“Wow… it’s nice to be appreciated…” Téa replied, with a smile. “You know, I think I’m finally going to like it here.”
“I hope you mean here with the troupe,” said Kayser, checking his watch. “Our flight to Buenos Aires leaves in about three hours.”
“What!? We’re leaving now!?”
“We have to practice for the new show,” Kayser explained. “Alright, all of you-it’s time to head back to the hotel, pack up, and get moving!”
“The inside joke about the Dancers of the Elements is that our travel seems to invoke a whirlwind,” explained Aurus.
“I believe it…” she replied, realizing that she wouldn’t even get a chance to talk to Seto.
“Oh, don’t worry about it too much,” he added, noticing the look on her face. “My cousin’s promised us that after our Buenos Aires performance, we’ll be taking a break for a few days until it’s time for the next show.”
“That’s a relief!” Téa smiled. “Where’re we going for vacation?”
“I think I heard him mention that we’d get to see the Aztec ruins and stuff, so I’m guessing Mexico.”
Téa nodded.
*****************************************
Seto, in the meantime, had received Téa’s email, and quickly found where Keith was hiding. Concealing himself carefully in the crowd, he approached the card shark, who was on his cell phone, completely unaware of the CEO’s presence.
“I don’t care what he thinks; you tell him that he has to go,” Keith snarled. “I can’t make it; I have other business to attend to in Vancouver.”
“Excellent,” thought Seto. “That was all I needed to hear.”
Once again, the element of surprise would be his. A confrontation here in the theater would not go unnoticed, and Keith, the coward that he was, would probably flee before Seto would have a chance to say anything.
Seto immediately began to make an unnoticed retreat. He knew where he would be going; his private jet would get him to Vancouver before Keith even had the chance to leave Tokyo.
His thoughts were diverted by another email from Téa.
“We’re on the move again, it seems,” she had said in the message. “We’re leaving immediately for Buenos Aires. I don’t know how long it will be until we meet again, but I hope that everything goes alright for you, Kaiba. Be careful while you’re out chasing Keith, okay? And tell my friend to be careful, too; look after him, even though you probably can’t stand him.”
Seto’s eyes narrowed involuntarily as he recalled that hug she had suddenly given him when they had last spoken to each other. He still didn’t know what to make of that hug; annoyance mixed with bewilderment and confusion at the very memory of it. Would he have pulled away if she hadn’t released him from the embrace so quickly? He didn’t know, nor did it really matter at this point. And there was a part of him that was almost afraid to find out.
************************************************
Téa’s journey to Buenos Aires was uneventful. After the flight, she was once again riding in the bus, to be taken to the hotel. Every chance she had, she sent messages to all of her friends, and reading their replies. Her chances to do this were not as frequent as before; now the other dancers were actually holding conversations with her, and she found that she had to relish every moment she had to herself.
“It’s no surprise that they think you’re great, Téa,” Yugi had said. “We knew it all along. But it’s what you mentioned about Bandit Keith that bothers me… Like you pointed out, Kaiba might be in more trouble than he realizes. Hopefully, you’ll be alright, since you’re leaving with the other dancers. But I know Kaiba, and he’s likely to charge ahead and land right in trouble. I suppose he refused your help when you offered it, didn’t he?”
She stopped reading at this point. Seto hadn’t flat-out refused her help; she had assumed that he would have done so, and therefore, she hadn’t bothered to ask. And he hadn’t recoiled from the embrace she had given him… not that she had waited for him to do so.
She leaned back in her seat with a sigh. She hadn’t told any of her friends about the hug; they would be stunned (and, in Joey’s case, horrified). They weren’t likely to welcome the prospect of her falling in love with Seto Kaiba.
Her thoughts were diverted as Aurus took the seat beside her.
“What’s that thing?”
“Pocket organizer,” she said again. “It was a going-away present from my friends.”
“Awesome… you know, we should make those a requirement for the whole troupe,” he mused. “That way, no one can conveniently forget that rehearsals start at a particular time. Once the season gets underway, some of the stragglers start showing up late to rehearsals.” His eyes narrowed, in mock-suspicion. “You’d better not be one of them, Téa…”
Téa smiled; it was impossible to be down in the dumps with Aurus around.
“Well, there’s no need to worry,” she assured him. “The only place you might see me coming in late is when we get to New York, and that’ll be because I’ll be sightseeing somewhere.”
“Lucky for you that I’m always the one in charge of making sure that everyone gets in on time,” he replied. “I can always look the other way… Oh, we’re here. Looks like my cousin is going to make another one of his grand speeches…”
Sure enough, the elder Kayser addressed the dancers.
“The rest of the day is yours, so you’re free to go wherever you want,” he said. “Rehearsals continue tomorrow. Aurus, you’re in charge of making sure that everyone remembers.”
Aurus glanced at Téa with a look that said, “What did I tell you…?”
After she and Caerii had left their luggage in the room, Téa returned to the streets of Buenos Aires. She was savoring the chance to be alone, as she strolled through the antique markets. She wasn’t planning on buying anything, but after being friends with Yugi (and Atem) for so long, the past seemed to hold a new interest for her.
“Téa!” called Aurus. “Hey, I didn’t know you were into this old stuff, too!”
The smile she gave him wasn’t completely genuine; she had wanted the chance to get lost in her own thoughts. It was true that she hadn’t enjoyed it when the others were ignoring her, but now things were at the other extreme. Well, she couldn’t blame Aurus; he had been acting the same way since he met her.
“Yeah, I guess I’m a bit of an ancient history fan… especially ancient Egypt,” she said. “My friends back home were--”
“You into Egyptology, too?” asked Aurus. “One of our fans gave this pendant to my cousin; he thought it was absolutely hideous, so he gave it to me…”
He showed her the pendant he had been wearing. It was a small, golden pendant, but carved upon it was the image of a jackal-headed creature, carved in such a way to inspire awe and fear. The creature’s eyes were two fiery rubies, and other precious stones decorated the pendant. But it was the creature itself that unnerved Téa.
“But… that’s Anubis!” she gasped, recalling the time when the real Anubis had come to Domino.
“Yeah, I know. I think it’s genuine; the lady who gave it to my cousin said that it was an heirloom that her great-grandmother got from an opera singer, who was desperate to get rid of it. She said that it was cursed,” he added, with a shrug. “Maybe that’s why my cousin gave it to me; he’d love to see me make a fool of myself.”
“I’m not surprised that it’s cursed; with Anubis involved, I wouldn’t go near it,” she thought, fighting back the instinct to warn Aurus about it. Finally, she asked him, “How long have you had that?”
“This thing? I’ve had it for about three years,” he said, and he sensed her thoughts slightly. With a grin, he added, “No; nothing’s happened to me yet, so as far as I can tell, there is no curse.”
Téa nodded, slightly nervous, as she glanced at the items for sale in the marketplace.
“Anubis is gone,” she told herself, as she and Aurus looked around the inventory. “Yugi, Atem, and Kaiba defeated him when he showed up in Domino. Pegasus was confident that he wouldn’t be able to come back, and he’s more in tune to these things than the rest of us…”
It was odd trusting the words of Maximillion Pegasus, and she hoped that she wouldn’t regret it.
Pushing the thoughts of Anubis out of her mind, she continued with her window shopping for a couple more hours. After she had looked around enough, she and Aurus returned to the hotel.
Aurus said his goodbyes to her and went to speak with Hesper, who was reading a book in the lobby.
“Caerii just came back,” Téa heard Hesper say to Aurus. “She went on another one of her shopping sprees again…”
Téa didn’t bother to listen. She took a quick elevator ride to her floor and was approaching her room when she heard a piercing scream emit from within it.
“Caerii!?” she asked, running to the room. “Caerii, are you alright--!?”
Her eyes widened as she beheld the same sight that Caerii was beholding. Both of Téa’s suitcases, along with one of Caerii’s, had been dragged out into the middle of the room, their contents scattered haphazardly everywhere.
“I don’t believe this!” Téa exclaimed, horrified and infuriated at the same time. “Who could have done this!?”
Caerii turned to her, her expression set as though she had just seen a ghost.
“It was a gnome,” she said, in a stunned voice.
“What!?” asked Téa, hardly daring to believe it.
“I walked in about twenty seconds before you did and saw this… creepy-looking thing rooting through our stuff. It ran out to the balcony and jumped the moment I screamed.”
Téa and Caerii both looked over the balcony.
“There it is!” Caerii shrieked. She pointed to a small creature, walking sideways into some shrubbery. “Did you see that!?”
“I saw it… but I don’t believe it,” said Téa, amazed.
First, it had been the Anubis pendant, and now this gnome. Something strange was going on, and she was somehow caught in the middle of it.
Author: Crystal Rose of Pollux (rose_of_pollux)
Claim: Seto Kaiba/Téa Gardner (non-Kingdom Hearts claim)
Prompt: 03; Connected [coiled inseparably]
Warnings: PG13
Disclaimer: The characters aren't mine (expect for the OCs associated with the dance troupe) and the story is.
This chapter will be cross-posted to 20_cities, 30_hugs, 30_nights, and http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4336463/7/
“Don’t panic… whatever you do, do not panic,” Téa ordered herself. To panic would mean to dance out of step, which would not be tolerated. And aside from that, a wrong step would make her stand out; the last thing she wanted was for Bandit Keith to notice her.
Somehow, she managed to maintain her composure throughout the length of the show. Relieved that it was all over, Téa was barely listening to the praises that her colleagues were showering upon her.
“Aurus,” she said. “I need to speak to someone from the audience.”
“Against protocol,” Aurus informed her, quietly. “We’re not supposed to mingle with the audience except at special meet-and-greets; we’ll be having one in Chicago.”
“Chicago doesn’t work; there’s someone I need to meet right now.”
“Look, I’d gladly cover for you,” he said. “But my cousin wants to have a word with you right now…”
“Ah, there you are Miss Gardner!” said the elder Kayser, beaming as he had been the night he had invited her to join the troupe. “I knew it! I knew it all along! You’ll be the greatest! I just know that you’re going to learn all of the other dances just as well as you did with this one!”
“Other dances?” Téa asked, incredulously.
“You didn’t look over our whole website, did you?” asked Kayser, with a grin. “No two shows are ever the same.”
“How… wonderful…” Téa mumbled, and then she thought to herself, “Just when I think I’ve learned this routine down cold… I knew I should’ve done more research before I signed on.”
But she was only half-exasperated, for she had a wonderful time on that stage. She would’ve been far happier if it hadn’t been for the fact that Seto and Keith were somewhere in close proximity to each other.
Unobtrusively, she gathered her purse and sent Seto a quick email without even removing her handheld from the purse. Kayser didn’t even notice; he was leading her to the other dancers, who were all suddenly welcoming her with open arms. Even Hesper, who hadn’t said a word to her before, was congratulating her, as was Caerii, who also seemed impressed.
“Never would have guessed that you had it in you…” said Hesper, with a nod of approval.
“He’s right,” added Caerii. “Sorry we were so aloof; we honestly didn’t think that you’d last.”
“Hey-I’ve been telling them all along that you’d be great,” Aurus pointed out, not allowing himself to be forgotten so easily.
“Wow… it’s nice to be appreciated…” Téa replied, with a smile. “You know, I think I’m finally going to like it here.”
“I hope you mean here with the troupe,” said Kayser, checking his watch. “Our flight to Buenos Aires leaves in about three hours.”
“What!? We’re leaving now!?”
“We have to practice for the new show,” Kayser explained. “Alright, all of you-it’s time to head back to the hotel, pack up, and get moving!”
“The inside joke about the Dancers of the Elements is that our travel seems to invoke a whirlwind,” explained Aurus.
“I believe it…” she replied, realizing that she wouldn’t even get a chance to talk to Seto.
“Oh, don’t worry about it too much,” he added, noticing the look on her face. “My cousin’s promised us that after our Buenos Aires performance, we’ll be taking a break for a few days until it’s time for the next show.”
“That’s a relief!” Téa smiled. “Where’re we going for vacation?”
“I think I heard him mention that we’d get to see the Aztec ruins and stuff, so I’m guessing Mexico.”
Téa nodded.
*****************************************
Seto, in the meantime, had received Téa’s email, and quickly found where Keith was hiding. Concealing himself carefully in the crowd, he approached the card shark, who was on his cell phone, completely unaware of the CEO’s presence.
“I don’t care what he thinks; you tell him that he has to go,” Keith snarled. “I can’t make it; I have other business to attend to in Vancouver.”
“Excellent,” thought Seto. “That was all I needed to hear.”
Once again, the element of surprise would be his. A confrontation here in the theater would not go unnoticed, and Keith, the coward that he was, would probably flee before Seto would have a chance to say anything.
Seto immediately began to make an unnoticed retreat. He knew where he would be going; his private jet would get him to Vancouver before Keith even had the chance to leave Tokyo.
His thoughts were diverted by another email from Téa.
“We’re on the move again, it seems,” she had said in the message. “We’re leaving immediately for Buenos Aires. I don’t know how long it will be until we meet again, but I hope that everything goes alright for you, Kaiba. Be careful while you’re out chasing Keith, okay? And tell my friend to be careful, too; look after him, even though you probably can’t stand him.”
Seto’s eyes narrowed involuntarily as he recalled that hug she had suddenly given him when they had last spoken to each other. He still didn’t know what to make of that hug; annoyance mixed with bewilderment and confusion at the very memory of it. Would he have pulled away if she hadn’t released him from the embrace so quickly? He didn’t know, nor did it really matter at this point. And there was a part of him that was almost afraid to find out.
************************************************
Téa’s journey to Buenos Aires was uneventful. After the flight, she was once again riding in the bus, to be taken to the hotel. Every chance she had, she sent messages to all of her friends, and reading their replies. Her chances to do this were not as frequent as before; now the other dancers were actually holding conversations with her, and she found that she had to relish every moment she had to herself.
“It’s no surprise that they think you’re great, Téa,” Yugi had said. “We knew it all along. But it’s what you mentioned about Bandit Keith that bothers me… Like you pointed out, Kaiba might be in more trouble than he realizes. Hopefully, you’ll be alright, since you’re leaving with the other dancers. But I know Kaiba, and he’s likely to charge ahead and land right in trouble. I suppose he refused your help when you offered it, didn’t he?”
She stopped reading at this point. Seto hadn’t flat-out refused her help; she had assumed that he would have done so, and therefore, she hadn’t bothered to ask. And he hadn’t recoiled from the embrace she had given him… not that she had waited for him to do so.
She leaned back in her seat with a sigh. She hadn’t told any of her friends about the hug; they would be stunned (and, in Joey’s case, horrified). They weren’t likely to welcome the prospect of her falling in love with Seto Kaiba.
Her thoughts were diverted as Aurus took the seat beside her.
“What’s that thing?”
“Pocket organizer,” she said again. “It was a going-away present from my friends.”
“Awesome… you know, we should make those a requirement for the whole troupe,” he mused. “That way, no one can conveniently forget that rehearsals start at a particular time. Once the season gets underway, some of the stragglers start showing up late to rehearsals.” His eyes narrowed, in mock-suspicion. “You’d better not be one of them, Téa…”
Téa smiled; it was impossible to be down in the dumps with Aurus around.
“Well, there’s no need to worry,” she assured him. “The only place you might see me coming in late is when we get to New York, and that’ll be because I’ll be sightseeing somewhere.”
“Lucky for you that I’m always the one in charge of making sure that everyone gets in on time,” he replied. “I can always look the other way… Oh, we’re here. Looks like my cousin is going to make another one of his grand speeches…”
Sure enough, the elder Kayser addressed the dancers.
“The rest of the day is yours, so you’re free to go wherever you want,” he said. “Rehearsals continue tomorrow. Aurus, you’re in charge of making sure that everyone remembers.”
Aurus glanced at Téa with a look that said, “What did I tell you…?”
After she and Caerii had left their luggage in the room, Téa returned to the streets of Buenos Aires. She was savoring the chance to be alone, as she strolled through the antique markets. She wasn’t planning on buying anything, but after being friends with Yugi (and Atem) for so long, the past seemed to hold a new interest for her.
“Téa!” called Aurus. “Hey, I didn’t know you were into this old stuff, too!”
The smile she gave him wasn’t completely genuine; she had wanted the chance to get lost in her own thoughts. It was true that she hadn’t enjoyed it when the others were ignoring her, but now things were at the other extreme. Well, she couldn’t blame Aurus; he had been acting the same way since he met her.
“Yeah, I guess I’m a bit of an ancient history fan… especially ancient Egypt,” she said. “My friends back home were--”
“You into Egyptology, too?” asked Aurus. “One of our fans gave this pendant to my cousin; he thought it was absolutely hideous, so he gave it to me…”
He showed her the pendant he had been wearing. It was a small, golden pendant, but carved upon it was the image of a jackal-headed creature, carved in such a way to inspire awe and fear. The creature’s eyes were two fiery rubies, and other precious stones decorated the pendant. But it was the creature itself that unnerved Téa.
“But… that’s Anubis!” she gasped, recalling the time when the real Anubis had come to Domino.
“Yeah, I know. I think it’s genuine; the lady who gave it to my cousin said that it was an heirloom that her great-grandmother got from an opera singer, who was desperate to get rid of it. She said that it was cursed,” he added, with a shrug. “Maybe that’s why my cousin gave it to me; he’d love to see me make a fool of myself.”
“I’m not surprised that it’s cursed; with Anubis involved, I wouldn’t go near it,” she thought, fighting back the instinct to warn Aurus about it. Finally, she asked him, “How long have you had that?”
“This thing? I’ve had it for about three years,” he said, and he sensed her thoughts slightly. With a grin, he added, “No; nothing’s happened to me yet, so as far as I can tell, there is no curse.”
Téa nodded, slightly nervous, as she glanced at the items for sale in the marketplace.
“Anubis is gone,” she told herself, as she and Aurus looked around the inventory. “Yugi, Atem, and Kaiba defeated him when he showed up in Domino. Pegasus was confident that he wouldn’t be able to come back, and he’s more in tune to these things than the rest of us…”
It was odd trusting the words of Maximillion Pegasus, and she hoped that she wouldn’t regret it.
Pushing the thoughts of Anubis out of her mind, she continued with her window shopping for a couple more hours. After she had looked around enough, she and Aurus returned to the hotel.
Aurus said his goodbyes to her and went to speak with Hesper, who was reading a book in the lobby.
“Caerii just came back,” Téa heard Hesper say to Aurus. “She went on another one of her shopping sprees again…”
Téa didn’t bother to listen. She took a quick elevator ride to her floor and was approaching her room when she heard a piercing scream emit from within it.
“Caerii!?” she asked, running to the room. “Caerii, are you alright--!?”
Her eyes widened as she beheld the same sight that Caerii was beholding. Both of Téa’s suitcases, along with one of Caerii’s, had been dragged out into the middle of the room, their contents scattered haphazardly everywhere.
“I don’t believe this!” Téa exclaimed, horrified and infuriated at the same time. “Who could have done this!?”
Caerii turned to her, her expression set as though she had just seen a ghost.
“It was a gnome,” she said, in a stunned voice.
“What!?” asked Téa, hardly daring to believe it.
“I walked in about twenty seconds before you did and saw this… creepy-looking thing rooting through our stuff. It ran out to the balcony and jumped the moment I screamed.”
Téa and Caerii both looked over the balcony.
“There it is!” Caerii shrieked. She pointed to a small creature, walking sideways into some shrubbery. “Did you see that!?”
“I saw it… but I don’t believe it,” said Téa, amazed.
First, it had been the Anubis pendant, and now this gnome. Something strange was going on, and she was somehow caught in the middle of it.