Fic-DBSK/Tales of Phantasia-The Spaces Between (Chapter 1: On the Edge)
Title: The Spaces Between; Chapter 1: On the Edge
Author: virdant
Length: 2,617 words; 1/5
Rating: PG / PG-13
Genre: Crossover with Tales of Phantasia (AU) / Drama / Tragedy
Pairing: None
Summary:
Story Summary: Midgard on the eve of war.
Chapter Summary: “There’s strangers in town,” Yoochun hissed, eyes bright with excitement. “I saw them head out of the fortress.”
“And why aren’t you minding shop?” Jaejoong asked, leaning on the window sill.
Yoochun paused, his eyes a touch distant. “I was. But then I saw Changmin all dressed up and marching, and I had to ask him what was going on to get everybody all stirred up like that, and he told me that there were strangers, all the way from Alvanista, to help fight against the monsters.”
Warning: reference to events from a game, but no actual quoting from the game because I don't have save-files for this time period orz.
Notes: I draw most heavily from the SNES game, with references to the OVA. I am also using this walkthrough to insure that the events I write remain moderately accurate. Unfortunatly, this means that some of the dialogue in this chapter is MADE UP. If anybody has a savegame file for this time period, I would love you so much, words would be unable to describe my love. The story should be understandable if you do not know a thing about Tales of Phantasia. This story has been plot-beta'd by muu_chan.
Chapter 1: On the Edge / Chapter 2: Enter Hither / Chapter 3: South the Valhalla Plains / Chapter 4: Towards the Stars / Chapter 5: Over the Edge
The Spaces Between
“Truly if there is evil in the world, it lies in the heart of mankind.” - Edward D. Morrison
Chapter 1: On the Edge
There had been strangers in the store today; Jaejoong had doled out ten scrawny apples and the rest of the bread in the shop to the pretty blond girl-lady in the silver cloak. It was odd to have strangers visit Midgard-especially with a war going on.
They had looked like seasoned fighters; at least the boy-man in armor had looked like he could fight, all dressed up in plate-mail that actually had looked worn, not just shiny from tins of cheap polish from the pharmacy. Jaejoong hadn’t figured what the others were for-mayhap family, all coming in to die, though the snippet of a girl with a broom and the man all cloaked up hadn’t looked like they were family to the boy-man in armor.
Jaejoong should have been a fighter: one of the guards all done up in armor preparing to be sent to (die) fight Dhaos and his army. It was bad luck that had caught him here, left him trapped in the family grocery in the middle of war. Bad luck. Jaejoong repeated that to himself, as if repeating it would make the bad luck story true. Jaejoong knew better, despite the rumors that fluttered around Midgard: it wasn’t bad luck that had killed his family and left him alive; it was war. Demon-monsters.
He was the only person in his family left, to dole out supplies and run the Grocery. It was only his sense of honor, tarnished it may be, that kept him from charging too much for the almost rotten apples and strange smelling mackerel. As it was, charging standard market price-at least what standard market price was when there was a market and an opportunity to trade-for goods that shouldn’t be sold at all turned Jaejoong’s stomach. And the girl-lady-not a girl, but not a lady: there had been a hint of Ifrit-forged steel under the sweet earnest smile-had smiled at him as if he were doing a favor.
“Hey, Jaejoong,” Yoochun hissed through the crack of the window.
Jaejoong slipped out from behind the counter, bracing himself on the wall to keep his leg from buckling from under his weight, and limped his way towards the window, jerking to the side the (dusty) gauzy curtains his mother had put up when they had first started. “Yoochun,” Jaejoong replied. Yoochun, who ran the pawn shop north and west of the grocer’s, but spent more time tinkering with whatever came in; everybody in town knew that if you wanted something special you went to Yoochun, who played with and arranged bits of metal to suit anybody’s fancy.
“There’s strangers in town,” Yoochun hissed, eyes bright with excitement. “I saw them head out of the fortress.”
“And why aren’t you minding shop?” Jaejoong asked, leaning on the window sill. While for Jaejoong, minding shop consisted of watching over the groceries and keeping an eye out for slats of sunshine disturbing cool crates of food, Yoochun’s definition of minding shop included creating strange trinkets for the few that were actually engaging in trade these days with war on the edge of everybody’s lives. Lyzen, Jaejoong had heard, wanted Yoochun’s work.
Yoochun paused, his eyes a touch distant. “I was. But then I saw Changmin all dressed up and marching, and I had to ask him what was going on to get everybody all stirred up like that, and he told me that there were strangers, all the way from Alvanista, to help fight against the monsters.”
Jaejoong thought of the boy-man; he hadn’t looked like he could fight against the demon-monsters Dhaos controlled.
“It turns out that they’ve got a witch,” Yoochun explained. “And even one of those summoners that everybody figured were long gone years ago that can summon the spirits. And even a healer,” Yoochun tapped the glass, the sound of his nail on glass cutting through the tiny thread of his voice that slipped through the edges of the seals. “They’re going to fight against the monsters.”
“They’ll probably die,” Jaejoong said quietly, even as he wondered why Midgard persisted in fighting against Dhaos when Dhaos hadn’t even declared war yet-why was Dhaos so obsessed with Midgard anyways? It wasn’t as if Midgard had anything that Dhaos could possibly want, not when Dhaos had legions of monsters to call from. Monsters to kill, to murder, to rip limbs from bodies and raze cities to the ground, leaving only the dead. “And then their family’ll have to bury more dead. Maybe not even their family, since they’re from Alvanista.” But a summoner to summon the spirits. That would have been the man. And the witch, that would have been the snippet of a girl.
“There’s more,” Yoochun said, and his mouth opened to say something, but then the tinkle of half-rusted bells above the door caught Jaejoong’s attention, and Yoochun disappeared to his own shop while Jaejoong focused his attention on Hebe.
“Hi,” Hebe said softly. Limp with exhaustion, Jaejoong thought.
“Welcome,” Jaejoong said with a strained smile, limping his way towards the counter. “What can I do for you?”
“We need more bread,” she said.
Jaejoong looked away. “I’ve sold the last of it today.”
Hebe nodded. There was no blame in her nod, just calm, Gnome-blessed understanding under Sylph-worn weariness. In times like this, all supplies vanished quickly. “Do you have any apples then?” Apples were good for the children.
Jaejoong nodded towards the barrel. “What’s there is all that’s left,” he said.
Hebe flipped through the few apples that weren’t wrinkled and came up with four. “Did you sell the food to the strangers that came through?”
“Yes.”
“They stopped by the orphanage,” Hebe said quietly as she turned to the shelf of cheeses, picking up a slab of creamy cheese, the cloth dusty. Cheese kept well though. “What some of the kids said almost killed me.”
Jaejoong knew what the kids said: “I want my mother,” Jaejoong could hear a child wail. “Where are my parents?” another would continue. “Do you need more food?” he asked instead, to keep his mind off of the words.
“You don’t have much food for yourself,” Hebe reminded him.
“I have enough.” What was the purpose of turning a profit when Dhaos’ army could come any moment and crush Midgard? “There’s some mackerel. It smells a little strange, but it’s still good.”
“Mackerel is expensive,” Hebe said absently.
“Just take it,” Jaejoong said, looking everywhere but at Hebe. “There’s also some beef. Take that too. Give it to the kids.”
“I’m not going to just take your food, Jaejoong,” Hebe said, an undertone of steel belying her words. Before Dhaos had come so close, Hebe had never spoken with such hidden menace. Now, that was the only tone that everybody spoke with. “When Dhaos is gone, you’ll need to keep this store running, and I’m not going to bankrupt you now.” She did take a slab of sirloin though, her lips in a pout as she calculated how much money she could spare for food this week.
“Dhaos isn’t just going to go away,” Jaejoong commented. “That’s twenty-four gald,” he added, tallying up the purchases. She had unearthed a bag of flour from somewhere.
She handed him sixty-four. She knew what market price for such goods were. “Don’t,” she said.
“I’m going to die,” Jaejoong said. He touched the leg. “I can’t even run when the monsters finally invades.” He shrugged a little, bitter. “I can handle not turning a profit.”
“Then don’t turn a profit. But don’t give it to me for free.”
Jaejoong closed his eyes. “Twenty for the beef. Two for the four apples. Ten for the flour. Thirty-two in total.”
“Is that what you charged the strangers who came by?”
“I charged them market price,” he said measuredly.
“Why? Why not charge me market price?”
Jaejoong thought of the children wailing, demanding food, life, their parents, and more. He thought of little Selina with her gape-toothed smile, Ella with her hair cropped short and her defiant tilt of head, Tiffany with her eyes almost drooping from the weight of nightmares every night, and all the others. “Because kids need to eat something. Even if they’re going to die in a day’s time, they still should eat something.”
*
For two days, all Midgard could talk about were the strangers who had come and gone two days ago, and the fact that the king had decided to assemble an army at the Valhalla Plains to fight against Dhaos-to invade Dhaos’ castle. During these two days, Changmin and Junsu had visited Jaejoong from his place behind the grocery counter.
“Jaejoong,” the two of them had greeted. Changmin had rolled his shoulders and had perched on a chair while Junsu had laughed a little awkwardly, eyes drawn to the lack of food in barrels and boxes.
“Changmin, Junsu,” Jaejoong had said in reply. “You’re not at the Valhalla plains?” That had surprised him; he had thought they had left to (die) fight a day ago with the other soldiers that had marched out of Midgard.
“We’re in Midgard for now,” Changmin had explained. He had sighed a little. “Are you alright?”
“Is your leg fine?” Junsu had added.
Jaejoong’s smile had strained. “I’m fine,” he had said. “Don’t worry about me. Worry about yourselves. You’re going to be fighting soon.”
Junsu had moved towards the counter to give Jaejoong an awkward hug-anxiety and fear of what the demon-monsters could do left all of them awkward. “We’ll be fine,” he had assured Jaejoong.
Changmin had nodded in agreement before giving Jaejoong an embrace of his own. “We’ll be in the Valhalla plains. Don’t worry about us. We’ll beat Dhaos for certain. We’ve got the warriors from Alvanista helping us too.”
“They’re gone,” Jaejoong said-referring to the strangers-in part-triumph and part-misery to Yoochun when Yoochun slipped away from the pawn shop he ran to visit Jaejoong in the grocer’s on the day two days after Midgard had watched strangers wander in and then out. (“There’s no business these days anyways,” Yoochun had explained through the dry cling of rusted bells hitting each other, “Who’s going to pawn anything with Dhaos about to kill us all?”). The strangers had left Midgard, just as Jaejoong had predicted, and the fact that his prediction had come true satisfied Jaejoong even as anxiety for Junsu and Changmin, leaving for the Valhalla Plains today to die sent a wave of misery coursing through his bones.
Yoochun slouched in the hard chair in the center of the grocer’s and said quietly, “So they’re gone…”
Jaejoong leaned back on the wall, his leg stretched out as he sat on the stool. “What did you expect?” he asked, thinking of the stranger’s faces. The little snippet of a girl, with hair that was more pink than red, a color he’d never seen before on any human, all wide-eyed and smiling. Even if she was some witch, she was too young to go up against Dhaos and his army. “They’re no more than children,” Jaejoong said, and he remembered the faces of the children at the orphanage, all desperate for their parents: Selina, Ella, Tiffany, little Brian, all of them. “I’m not surprised they ran.”
“That’s because you’re a pessimist,” Yoochun said dryly, “What did Hebe want that day?”
“Food,” Jaejoong said, turning to stare at the almost-rusted bells above the door, jingling faintly in the wind that suddenly stirred up. “You know.” He waved a hand around. “Bread, apples,” steak, “Healthy nutritional food for the kids.”
“You’re out of bread,” Yoochun reminded him. “And you should get a gummy for that,” he added, nodding towards the leg. “For the pain, if nothing else. It’s not better yet?”
Jaejoong sighed. He couldn’t feel the pain sometimes, and that frightened him more than the searing pain that flickered up his spine when he tried to walk instead of just limp. Nothingness frightened him-it wasn’t right. “Gummies are reserved for the reserve force,” he reminded Yoochun.
“Damnit, Jae-”
Bang!
“What was that?”
Jaejoong caught himself on the edge of the counter as the shockwave sent him careening, his tentative perch on the stool slipping away. For a second, he thought it was Gnome, the beast of the earth rumbling. An alarm careened shrilly. Then he realized: “Dhaos,” he breathed.
Yoochun was opening the door scant seconds later, helping Jaejoong to his feet, supporting the two of them as they hurried out of the grocery towards South Midgard. “I’ve never been so glad that you live near South Midgard before,” Yoochun declared with a half-grumble as they lurched their way towards the fortress. “Yunho!”
Yunho was hurrying out of the pharmacy. Upon seeing the two of them, he hurried to help support Jaejoong’s weight. “Do you know what happened?”
“No clue,” Yoochun said.
Jaejoong shook his head.
Yunho’s grip on Jaejoong tightened slightly; Jaejoong winced as Yunho’s nails dug into his skin. “Let’s go find out,” he said quietly.
*
“No!” Jaejoong shrieked-Yoochun slapped a hand over Jaejoong’s mouth-and twisted out of Yunho’s tightening grasp. “That’s Ella,” he protested as Yunho dragged him deeper into the crowd hiding behind pillars and walls and away from the demon holding, “Ella!” he screamed through Yoochun’s grip over his mouth. “Damnit, Yoochun!” he cried, flailing his one good leg around as he struggled to get out of their grip.
“Calm down, Jaejoong!” Yunho said in a fierce whisper. “Don’t draw attention! Trust in Changmin and Junsu and the other guards; they’re not going to let an orphan get killed on their watch!”
“Because kids need to eat something. Even if they’re going to die in a day’s time, they still should eat something.”
“Changmin and Junsu and the other guards are hiding with us behind these pillars!” Jaejoong protested, twisting a little more. If he jerked hard enough, Yunho wouldn’t be able to hold on. “Let go of me, Yunho!”
“You’ll fall,” Yoochun hissed protectively. “You can’t possibly walk on that leg of yours, Jaejoong.”
“That’s Ella, not some nameless stranger!” Jaejoong hissed back, fury at Yoochun’s and Yunho’s lack of care sliding tendrils over his mind. “How can you-”
-The demon let out a cackle, the sharp sounds slicing through Jaejoong’s fury. “I am Jestorna, and I am here on behalf of Lord Dhaos to declare war.”
“Ella!” Hebe screamed from behind another cluster of guards.
“Put the kid down!”
It was the boy-man from two days ago, armor gleaming dully in the light, sword out. “Put the kid down,” he repeated. His family-friends-fluttered around him like the ragged edges of his red cloak.
The demon-monster spun around; “Ella,” Jaejoong whispered.
She was shivering in the demon’s grip, trembling despite her bravado days ago in the orphanage, where she had declared that she’d kill any monster that came near.
“I think otherwise,” the demon-monster-Jestorna-declared. “Lord Dhaos has noticed your pitiful army on the plains. If it is a war you want, then a war you shall have.”
“Let go of the kid,” the boy-man repeated.
“I think I’ll take this one as a reminder…”
“No!”
Morrison, the wizard in Midgard, suddenly blurred behind the demon. The demon jerked as Morrison slammed into him. Ella scrambled away from the suddenly lax grasp into Jaejoong’s questing grip.
“Ella,” Jaejoong breathed in relief.
Morrison turned to the boy-man, saying words that Jaejoong paid no attention to, focused on tugging Ella’s short locks, ensuring that she’s alive. She’s not hurt.
He looked up in time to see Morrison wrap arms around the demon-monster and disappear in a flash of light.
To Chapter 2
If anybody is willing to be a beta for this piece (and possibly others), please let me know.
Author: virdant
Length: 2,617 words; 1/5
Rating: PG / PG-13
Genre: Crossover with Tales of Phantasia (AU) / Drama / Tragedy
Pairing: None
Summary:
Story Summary: Midgard on the eve of war.
Chapter Summary: “There’s strangers in town,” Yoochun hissed, eyes bright with excitement. “I saw them head out of the fortress.”
“And why aren’t you minding shop?” Jaejoong asked, leaning on the window sill.
Yoochun paused, his eyes a touch distant. “I was. But then I saw Changmin all dressed up and marching, and I had to ask him what was going on to get everybody all stirred up like that, and he told me that there were strangers, all the way from Alvanista, to help fight against the monsters.”
Warning: reference to events from a game, but no actual quoting from the game because I don't have save-files for this time period orz.
Notes: I draw most heavily from the SNES game, with references to the OVA. I am also using this walkthrough to insure that the events I write remain moderately accurate. Unfortunatly, this means that some of the dialogue in this chapter is MADE UP. If anybody has a savegame file for this time period, I would love you so much, words would be unable to describe my love. The story should be understandable if you do not know a thing about Tales of Phantasia. This story has been plot-beta'd by muu_chan.
Chapter 1: On the Edge / Chapter 2: Enter Hither / Chapter 3: South the Valhalla Plains / Chapter 4: Towards the Stars / Chapter 5: Over the Edge
The Spaces Between
“Truly if there is evil in the world, it lies in the heart of mankind.” - Edward D. Morrison
Chapter 1: On the Edge
There had been strangers in the store today; Jaejoong had doled out ten scrawny apples and the rest of the bread in the shop to the pretty blond girl-lady in the silver cloak. It was odd to have strangers visit Midgard-especially with a war going on.
They had looked like seasoned fighters; at least the boy-man in armor had looked like he could fight, all dressed up in plate-mail that actually had looked worn, not just shiny from tins of cheap polish from the pharmacy. Jaejoong hadn’t figured what the others were for-mayhap family, all coming in to die, though the snippet of a girl with a broom and the man all cloaked up hadn’t looked like they were family to the boy-man in armor.
Jaejoong should have been a fighter: one of the guards all done up in armor preparing to be sent to (die) fight Dhaos and his army. It was bad luck that had caught him here, left him trapped in the family grocery in the middle of war. Bad luck. Jaejoong repeated that to himself, as if repeating it would make the bad luck story true. Jaejoong knew better, despite the rumors that fluttered around Midgard: it wasn’t bad luck that had killed his family and left him alive; it was war. Demon-monsters.
He was the only person in his family left, to dole out supplies and run the Grocery. It was only his sense of honor, tarnished it may be, that kept him from charging too much for the almost rotten apples and strange smelling mackerel. As it was, charging standard market price-at least what standard market price was when there was a market and an opportunity to trade-for goods that shouldn’t be sold at all turned Jaejoong’s stomach. And the girl-lady-not a girl, but not a lady: there had been a hint of Ifrit-forged steel under the sweet earnest smile-had smiled at him as if he were doing a favor.
“Hey, Jaejoong,” Yoochun hissed through the crack of the window.
Jaejoong slipped out from behind the counter, bracing himself on the wall to keep his leg from buckling from under his weight, and limped his way towards the window, jerking to the side the (dusty) gauzy curtains his mother had put up when they had first started. “Yoochun,” Jaejoong replied. Yoochun, who ran the pawn shop north and west of the grocer’s, but spent more time tinkering with whatever came in; everybody in town knew that if you wanted something special you went to Yoochun, who played with and arranged bits of metal to suit anybody’s fancy.
“There’s strangers in town,” Yoochun hissed, eyes bright with excitement. “I saw them head out of the fortress.”
“And why aren’t you minding shop?” Jaejoong asked, leaning on the window sill. While for Jaejoong, minding shop consisted of watching over the groceries and keeping an eye out for slats of sunshine disturbing cool crates of food, Yoochun’s definition of minding shop included creating strange trinkets for the few that were actually engaging in trade these days with war on the edge of everybody’s lives. Lyzen, Jaejoong had heard, wanted Yoochun’s work.
Yoochun paused, his eyes a touch distant. “I was. But then I saw Changmin all dressed up and marching, and I had to ask him what was going on to get everybody all stirred up like that, and he told me that there were strangers, all the way from Alvanista, to help fight against the monsters.”
Jaejoong thought of the boy-man; he hadn’t looked like he could fight against the demon-monsters Dhaos controlled.
“It turns out that they’ve got a witch,” Yoochun explained. “And even one of those summoners that everybody figured were long gone years ago that can summon the spirits. And even a healer,” Yoochun tapped the glass, the sound of his nail on glass cutting through the tiny thread of his voice that slipped through the edges of the seals. “They’re going to fight against the monsters.”
“They’ll probably die,” Jaejoong said quietly, even as he wondered why Midgard persisted in fighting against Dhaos when Dhaos hadn’t even declared war yet-why was Dhaos so obsessed with Midgard anyways? It wasn’t as if Midgard had anything that Dhaos could possibly want, not when Dhaos had legions of monsters to call from. Monsters to kill, to murder, to rip limbs from bodies and raze cities to the ground, leaving only the dead. “And then their family’ll have to bury more dead. Maybe not even their family, since they’re from Alvanista.” But a summoner to summon the spirits. That would have been the man. And the witch, that would have been the snippet of a girl.
“There’s more,” Yoochun said, and his mouth opened to say something, but then the tinkle of half-rusted bells above the door caught Jaejoong’s attention, and Yoochun disappeared to his own shop while Jaejoong focused his attention on Hebe.
“Hi,” Hebe said softly. Limp with exhaustion, Jaejoong thought.
“Welcome,” Jaejoong said with a strained smile, limping his way towards the counter. “What can I do for you?”
“We need more bread,” she said.
Jaejoong looked away. “I’ve sold the last of it today.”
Hebe nodded. There was no blame in her nod, just calm, Gnome-blessed understanding under Sylph-worn weariness. In times like this, all supplies vanished quickly. “Do you have any apples then?” Apples were good for the children.
Jaejoong nodded towards the barrel. “What’s there is all that’s left,” he said.
Hebe flipped through the few apples that weren’t wrinkled and came up with four. “Did you sell the food to the strangers that came through?”
“Yes.”
“They stopped by the orphanage,” Hebe said quietly as she turned to the shelf of cheeses, picking up a slab of creamy cheese, the cloth dusty. Cheese kept well though. “What some of the kids said almost killed me.”
Jaejoong knew what the kids said: “I want my mother,” Jaejoong could hear a child wail. “Where are my parents?” another would continue. “Do you need more food?” he asked instead, to keep his mind off of the words.
“You don’t have much food for yourself,” Hebe reminded him.
“I have enough.” What was the purpose of turning a profit when Dhaos’ army could come any moment and crush Midgard? “There’s some mackerel. It smells a little strange, but it’s still good.”
“Mackerel is expensive,” Hebe said absently.
“Just take it,” Jaejoong said, looking everywhere but at Hebe. “There’s also some beef. Take that too. Give it to the kids.”
“I’m not going to just take your food, Jaejoong,” Hebe said, an undertone of steel belying her words. Before Dhaos had come so close, Hebe had never spoken with such hidden menace. Now, that was the only tone that everybody spoke with. “When Dhaos is gone, you’ll need to keep this store running, and I’m not going to bankrupt you now.” She did take a slab of sirloin though, her lips in a pout as she calculated how much money she could spare for food this week.
“Dhaos isn’t just going to go away,” Jaejoong commented. “That’s twenty-four gald,” he added, tallying up the purchases. She had unearthed a bag of flour from somewhere.
She handed him sixty-four. She knew what market price for such goods were. “Don’t,” she said.
“I’m going to die,” Jaejoong said. He touched the leg. “I can’t even run when the monsters finally invades.” He shrugged a little, bitter. “I can handle not turning a profit.”
“Then don’t turn a profit. But don’t give it to me for free.”
Jaejoong closed his eyes. “Twenty for the beef. Two for the four apples. Ten for the flour. Thirty-two in total.”
“Is that what you charged the strangers who came by?”
“I charged them market price,” he said measuredly.
“Why? Why not charge me market price?”
Jaejoong thought of the children wailing, demanding food, life, their parents, and more. He thought of little Selina with her gape-toothed smile, Ella with her hair cropped short and her defiant tilt of head, Tiffany with her eyes almost drooping from the weight of nightmares every night, and all the others. “Because kids need to eat something. Even if they’re going to die in a day’s time, they still should eat something.”
*
For two days, all Midgard could talk about were the strangers who had come and gone two days ago, and the fact that the king had decided to assemble an army at the Valhalla Plains to fight against Dhaos-to invade Dhaos’ castle. During these two days, Changmin and Junsu had visited Jaejoong from his place behind the grocery counter.
“Jaejoong,” the two of them had greeted. Changmin had rolled his shoulders and had perched on a chair while Junsu had laughed a little awkwardly, eyes drawn to the lack of food in barrels and boxes.
“Changmin, Junsu,” Jaejoong had said in reply. “You’re not at the Valhalla plains?” That had surprised him; he had thought they had left to (die) fight a day ago with the other soldiers that had marched out of Midgard.
“We’re in Midgard for now,” Changmin had explained. He had sighed a little. “Are you alright?”
“Is your leg fine?” Junsu had added.
Jaejoong’s smile had strained. “I’m fine,” he had said. “Don’t worry about me. Worry about yourselves. You’re going to be fighting soon.”
Junsu had moved towards the counter to give Jaejoong an awkward hug-anxiety and fear of what the demon-monsters could do left all of them awkward. “We’ll be fine,” he had assured Jaejoong.
Changmin had nodded in agreement before giving Jaejoong an embrace of his own. “We’ll be in the Valhalla plains. Don’t worry about us. We’ll beat Dhaos for certain. We’ve got the warriors from Alvanista helping us too.”
“They’re gone,” Jaejoong said-referring to the strangers-in part-triumph and part-misery to Yoochun when Yoochun slipped away from the pawn shop he ran to visit Jaejoong in the grocer’s on the day two days after Midgard had watched strangers wander in and then out. (“There’s no business these days anyways,” Yoochun had explained through the dry cling of rusted bells hitting each other, “Who’s going to pawn anything with Dhaos about to kill us all?”). The strangers had left Midgard, just as Jaejoong had predicted, and the fact that his prediction had come true satisfied Jaejoong even as anxiety for Junsu and Changmin, leaving for the Valhalla Plains today to die sent a wave of misery coursing through his bones.
Yoochun slouched in the hard chair in the center of the grocer’s and said quietly, “So they’re gone…”
Jaejoong leaned back on the wall, his leg stretched out as he sat on the stool. “What did you expect?” he asked, thinking of the stranger’s faces. The little snippet of a girl, with hair that was more pink than red, a color he’d never seen before on any human, all wide-eyed and smiling. Even if she was some witch, she was too young to go up against Dhaos and his army. “They’re no more than children,” Jaejoong said, and he remembered the faces of the children at the orphanage, all desperate for their parents: Selina, Ella, Tiffany, little Brian, all of them. “I’m not surprised they ran.”
“That’s because you’re a pessimist,” Yoochun said dryly, “What did Hebe want that day?”
“Food,” Jaejoong said, turning to stare at the almost-rusted bells above the door, jingling faintly in the wind that suddenly stirred up. “You know.” He waved a hand around. “Bread, apples,” steak, “Healthy nutritional food for the kids.”
“You’re out of bread,” Yoochun reminded him. “And you should get a gummy for that,” he added, nodding towards the leg. “For the pain, if nothing else. It’s not better yet?”
Jaejoong sighed. He couldn’t feel the pain sometimes, and that frightened him more than the searing pain that flickered up his spine when he tried to walk instead of just limp. Nothingness frightened him-it wasn’t right. “Gummies are reserved for the reserve force,” he reminded Yoochun.
“Damnit, Jae-”
Bang!
“What was that?”
Jaejoong caught himself on the edge of the counter as the shockwave sent him careening, his tentative perch on the stool slipping away. For a second, he thought it was Gnome, the beast of the earth rumbling. An alarm careened shrilly. Then he realized: “Dhaos,” he breathed.
Yoochun was opening the door scant seconds later, helping Jaejoong to his feet, supporting the two of them as they hurried out of the grocery towards South Midgard. “I’ve never been so glad that you live near South Midgard before,” Yoochun declared with a half-grumble as they lurched their way towards the fortress. “Yunho!”
Yunho was hurrying out of the pharmacy. Upon seeing the two of them, he hurried to help support Jaejoong’s weight. “Do you know what happened?”
“No clue,” Yoochun said.
Jaejoong shook his head.
Yunho’s grip on Jaejoong tightened slightly; Jaejoong winced as Yunho’s nails dug into his skin. “Let’s go find out,” he said quietly.
*
“No!” Jaejoong shrieked-Yoochun slapped a hand over Jaejoong’s mouth-and twisted out of Yunho’s tightening grasp. “That’s Ella,” he protested as Yunho dragged him deeper into the crowd hiding behind pillars and walls and away from the demon holding, “Ella!” he screamed through Yoochun’s grip over his mouth. “Damnit, Yoochun!” he cried, flailing his one good leg around as he struggled to get out of their grip.
“Calm down, Jaejoong!” Yunho said in a fierce whisper. “Don’t draw attention! Trust in Changmin and Junsu and the other guards; they’re not going to let an orphan get killed on their watch!”
“Because kids need to eat something. Even if they’re going to die in a day’s time, they still should eat something.”
“Changmin and Junsu and the other guards are hiding with us behind these pillars!” Jaejoong protested, twisting a little more. If he jerked hard enough, Yunho wouldn’t be able to hold on. “Let go of me, Yunho!”
“You’ll fall,” Yoochun hissed protectively. “You can’t possibly walk on that leg of yours, Jaejoong.”
“That’s Ella, not some nameless stranger!” Jaejoong hissed back, fury at Yoochun’s and Yunho’s lack of care sliding tendrils over his mind. “How can you-”
-The demon let out a cackle, the sharp sounds slicing through Jaejoong’s fury. “I am Jestorna, and I am here on behalf of Lord Dhaos to declare war.”
“Ella!” Hebe screamed from behind another cluster of guards.
“Put the kid down!”
It was the boy-man from two days ago, armor gleaming dully in the light, sword out. “Put the kid down,” he repeated. His family-friends-fluttered around him like the ragged edges of his red cloak.
The demon-monster spun around; “Ella,” Jaejoong whispered.
She was shivering in the demon’s grip, trembling despite her bravado days ago in the orphanage, where she had declared that she’d kill any monster that came near.
“I think otherwise,” the demon-monster-Jestorna-declared. “Lord Dhaos has noticed your pitiful army on the plains. If it is a war you want, then a war you shall have.”
“Let go of the kid,” the boy-man repeated.
“I think I’ll take this one as a reminder…”
“No!”
Morrison, the wizard in Midgard, suddenly blurred behind the demon. The demon jerked as Morrison slammed into him. Ella scrambled away from the suddenly lax grasp into Jaejoong’s questing grip.
“Ella,” Jaejoong breathed in relief.
Morrison turned to the boy-man, saying words that Jaejoong paid no attention to, focused on tugging Ella’s short locks, ensuring that she’s alive. She’s not hurt.
He looked up in time to see Morrison wrap arms around the demon-monster and disappear in a flash of light.
To Chapter 2
If anybody is willing to be a beta for this piece (and possibly others), please let me know.