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Special Chapter 4: Duty or Heart? (Part 1) |
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Another Flotsam chapter. It's about time I did another one; there's been little to no FlotsamxAna action lately. Time to get a fresh perspective on things.
Anastasia sat up and rubbed her eyes; dawn was getting ready to break and at the same time storm clouds were gathering. "What are you doing here?" she asked me, a confused look on her face. "Aren't you supposed to be studying your magic?"
I'd thought she would say this. "Yes," I replied, not a trace of regret in my voice, "but I had to see you. It's about something important."
From the look on her face, you'd think I had asked her to take her top off, which I would never do by the way. rolleyes Girls are so easily embarassed. Still, she said she wanted to know. I stated the nature of my visit. "Phoenix sent me here to make sure you never forget Melissa."
"Oh, the mermaid princess I was friends with for a while? I could never forget her."
This was strange. Melissa was alive and well, even if she was in Lelouch's clutches. It sounded as if she had completely disappeared from Ana's life the way she went on. "What do you mean friends for a while?" I asked. "You're still friends now right?"
"Of course we are, if I ever see her again. She just disappeared about a month ago." Phew, she hadn't forgotten too much. "You mentioned a Phoenix person earlier; they wouldn't happen to be Phoenix Rose would they?"
"Yes." I couldn't believe it. The Angel of Music had appeared to her and she hadn't even recognized him. I wanted to tell her the good news, but second-guessed myself and didn't. She had too much to worry about as it was with Melissa gone.
I told her about the photograph instead. "I discovered an old photo of you when you were younger. How come you never told me that you were affliated with the Phantom?"
She blushed slightly before answering. "I didn't want you to be jealous of me. I was concerned for your temperment after I found out why you glared at Jareth like you do: because you love me."
I wasn't jealous; I wanted to help her all the more because of it, and I made a point of telling her so. "Speaking of Jareth," I said, "he and I had a little... talk while you were gone."
"Oh really?" she asked skeptically.
"It turns out he doesn't love you." I said that with as much ice in my voice as possible. Without warning, Anastasia flung herself into my arms. I had been expecting at least a few tears, if not full-out crying, but she didn't seem sad. Even still, I held her close to me. I guess it was one of those times where you just need someone to hold you for no particular reason, and hey! no complaints if I'm doing the holding, if you know what I mean.
I was aware of Aoi staring at us. Ana and I both looked at her and saw a luminescent glow on her skin in the fading night. She picked up Mat's sword, which I had noticed between them before I woke Ana up, and a grave expression came over her. "He's gone," she said.
My mistress didn't understand, but I knew immediately what she meant. Mat had chosen to live in darkness, and we wouldn't see him in daylight for a long time. "Don't be sad Ana," Mat's partner in crime continued. "He isn't lost to us forever."
A brief glimmer of hope flashed between my mistress' eyes and mine. "But..." I had thought there was a catch. "But what?" I asked her, ready for anything.
Aoi looked me straight in the face. "Flotsam, I think Melissa may be."
For once, Anastasia was completely bewildered. Come on, what did Aoi have to do? Spell it out in hieroglyphics? In order to enlighten her, I said "She's done it Aoi, hasn't she? She's forgotten her friends."
In that moment, the dawn broke and a thunderclap was heard in the distance. Ana broke free of my arms and punched her fists into the blanket. Tears streamed down her cheeks as rain poured down her back. Aoi and I made to help her but she shouted at us to "Leave!" We both knew not to press the issue further, knowing Melissa when she got like this, so Aoi and I did just that.
Later that day, after wandering around Sunset Town and exploring (I thought I saw Mat fighting some girl on a rain-drenched rooftop.), the rain stopped. 'She certainly can't cry anymore now,' I thought as I made my way back to the beach. She certainly couldn't because she had fainted on the boardwalk close by the beach. I slid to her side and lifted her up with her arm around my shoulder. I had to find a safe place to take care of her and soon; Lelouch could might as well be watching our every move.
I found an abandoned house (The people who lived in it had gone on holiday.) and carried her up to a bedroom. I stripped her of her wet clothes (Don't look at me like that. I didn't take off her underwear or anything.) and layed her inside the bed; she her favorite blue nightgown on which I had gotten from her pack.
I took her temperature (She had felt warm in my arms, and I don't mean the comfotable kind.) and began sliding cold medicine down her throat soon after. "It's a good thing I did actually practice something while you were gone," after she woke up a short time later. (Author: I'll be alway be grateful to Flotsam for returning the favor to me for saving his life. If it weren't for his fascination with my medical books, I would probably be dead.) "You wre soaking wet when Aoi and I found you."
She sat up, asking where Aoi was. I pushed her back down, scolding, "You've caught a serious cold. You need to rest, mistress, not worry about your friends. As for Aoi, she's probably off looking for Mat. (Indeed she was for she had told me when we parted ways at the door to the house.) It's nightime so he'll probably be around."
My mistress didn't argue anymore. Before long, she was asleep again. I sat guard at her head, ever vigilant for any sign of her enemies. However, even the most vigilant of watchman can fall victim to fatigue, and that's just what happened with me almost an hour later.
Total darkness surrounded me in my dreams. I had been in such situations when I had worked for Ursula so it didn't surprise me; what did surprise me was that Anastasia was here with me. "What are you doing here?" she asked me. I told her I could ask her the same.
"This is my dream," we both said. We both blushed and then I realized that we were in the same dream together. We would only be in the same dream if something very important was up. "I brought you here to tell you something important," said a voice from within the darkness. ( rolleyes Like I said.)
Unconsciously, I pulled Anastasia closer to me. I knew that voice, the voice of a friend, so I wasn't afraid. "Phoenix?" I asked the darkness. "Is that you?"
"Yes, actually," said the honey-eyed man, materilaizing out of the receding darkness. You never felt scared when he was around, which was good if he needed to tell you something. "Anastasia, it wasn't really Lelouch you saw in your dreams."
What?! Had Lelouch toyed with her in her dreams again? The thought of that little opera-ghost wannabe just about made my blood boil when I heard that. Good thing Ana was looking at Phoenix so she couldn't see the green fervor rising in my face. (Author: Flet and Jet have green blood. (see Ch.3)) "Who was it then?" she inquired of him.
"It was me, and I am sorry for decieving you." On the one hand he had made trouble for her in the guise of someone who wanted her dead and gone; on the other hand he exposed Lelouch's treachery. I didn't know what to make of how he had told her about her visit in the Realm of Dreams.
He elaborated, "Let me explain. The vision was untruthful, but the information I gave wasn't. (I should certainly hope not.) It was really Lelouch you saw in the graveyared when you were with Jareth."
This was all old news to me, but I held onto my mistress and listened attentively. "In order to make you forget about Melissa, he used his Geass on you in combonation with the kiss you gave him. What I didn't expect was for the command coming into full effect when I was forced to leave the dreamworld and was replaced by the real Lelouch. I couldn't do much to help you there, so I gave you back your memeory in pieces and had Flotsam here (He indicated me with his hand.) watch over you to make sure you never forgot her completely."
I continued to stare at him. This man was trying to help me by helping Ana, but I couldn't help the feeling that he was using me, what for I didn't know why. "Thank you for all that you've done for me," Ana said after a moment of silence. "You've helped me more than you know."
"The fact that you remember her now is all the thanks I need," he replied. (Always the gentleman isn't her? Pfffffffft!) "As for the matter of Flotsam, you have found a good match in him, both as a student and a companion."
I turned to Anastasia and stared deeply into her hazel eyes with my sparkling blue ones. The man who had taught her the meaning of love had just said I was worthy of her; I honestly felt as if nothing else mattered then. "Before you go I have one more gift for you," said Phoenix, bringing us both back to the present. "I came across it in my travels and think that you could use it."
He produced a sapphire locket on a gold chain, identical to the ruby one that Anastasia had found a week ago, and placed it around her neck. "Wear it until Melissa returns," he told her, "and always know that you can call on me anytime you're in darkness."
The dream was dissolving I knew because Anastasia disappeared. Phoenix took my arm with his nearly non-existent hand, and whispered, "Thank you for not telling her my secret. I will tell her when the time is right; as for you, I really mean what I said about you being worthy of her."
I woke up with my head on my arms and both Anastasia and I immediately looked towards her neck. The sapphire locket was still there, but there was also something inside me that hadn't been there before the dream: new resolve to protect my mistress by whatever means possible. And the best place to protect her? Back at the grotto, with Jetsam at my side.
"You're an easy target for Lelouch here," I told her again as we came down to the beach. (She had just about launched off like a rocket at the notion of moving in her weakened state. She was stubborn when it came to being sick and normally I would have agreed, but this was one instance where I had to disobey her because her safety came first, whether she had a cold or not.) "That's why we're going to the last place that he would look for us: home."
She grasped my hand and we dove beneath the waves. I swam so that we arrived back at the grotto a few hours later, where it might have taken days on land. (Even though Mat would probably have beaten me on land, I could keep up with him in the water if not surpass him. I guess this is where having a tail comes in handy. *swish, swish*)
Jetsam greeted us but not in a friendly homecoming way. He ran to and hugged us so hard you'd think it was the Heimlich maneuver instead of a hug. I knew something was up, but I kept a casual demeanour and let him do the talking. When it came to Jetsam and me, there could be no secrets between us for long. "Thank Poseidon you're safe," Jetsam said, obvious relief in his voice. "I was afraid you'd been kidnapped too."
Kidnapped? As if. He knew me better than that. "Kidnapped? Me?" I persisted skeptically. "Come on Jetsam. After all we've been through, no one would even think about kidnapping us. Besides, Anastasia could never be like Ursula."
I eyed my mistress as I said that last bit. It was true; Anastasia had more compassion, curiosity, not to mention quirkiness than Ursula would ever know. From where I stood, she had treated me better over the course of 3 months than my former mistress had ever done. She saw me as more than just a servant and student; she saw me as a friend, or at least I hoped so.
"You don't understand," said Jetsam, snapping me out of my tender reverie. "Sarah is gone."
The next three days were spent looking for the smallest part of our "family", express orders of Anastasia. (She never took off the sapphire locket during that time, following Phoenix's orders, even though we had discovered that it was fully removable unlike its ruby sister. We also discovered that the locket had nothing inside it.) Normally, I couldn't have cared less what happened to the little brat, but the way Ana fervently searched for our adopted daughter made me push those thoughts aside.
While she was out answering a summons from Jareth to the Labyrinth about a "parcel" he had found on the third day, I thought I might work a little more on my project. I had been making a lotus blossom out of obsidian when Anastasia had been away; it had originally been a gift for her when she got back, but now that I knew Melissa had forgotten her best friend, I worked as quickly as I could to finish it for her. I wittled away stone on the lily-pad, sculpted the tips of the petals into fine points, and filed the edges so that they were smooth but only just.
I had just finished up when Anastasia came home, with Jareth in tow and Sarah in her arms. She put Sarah down on the couch as I came up to show her my work. "Phoenix charged me to make sure that you never forgot your friends," I said, pride swelling in my voice. "Now that that's done, I can focus on doing the same for Melissa. I made this flower (I held it out to her.) as best I could since I've never seen a water lily before (except in the books I used for reference, I added to myself.)"
She took it from me and looked at it with admiration. Apparently, it pleased her for she called Jetsam to come take a look at it. He came out of the potions lab (He had been standing in the doorway, watching us.) with a vial of pink goo in his hand and slid over to us. What happened next amazed him and me like we had never seen. Anastasia cradled the blossom between her palms and closed her eyes; a few seconds afterward, the lily-pad began crystalizing, followed by the petals moving steadly towards the center.
It was breath-taking to watch, but more breath taking still was the feat of chemical magic that Jetsam performed. "When I saw Flotsam making this, I figured I'd help him out," he said after he had dumped the "goo" onto the flower. "He can make a replica of a flower. (Hey! At least I tried, and like you could do any better.) I can actually make it so believable that people will think it's the real thing."
I was about to retort when the flower suddenly burst into bloom. The center spiraled skyward as the petals turned yellow with pink tips, the lily-pad turned green, and when Ana and I leaned in closer, it acutally smelled like the real thing, or at leat that's what Ana told me. Remembering who our collective efforts had been for, we whispered "Remember your friends." into the petals together. Now all that was left to do was to get the flower to Melissa, wherever she might be hiding.
It was only when Jareth abruptly, and oh so rudely, disrupted our quiet moment as a three-some of friends that I realized I hadn't glared at him once. 'And why should I?' I thought to myself. 'He's given me the thing that means the most to me: the right to my mistress' love and affection.'
Ana dragged us along with her, Jetsam having the lotus blossom in tow for some reason or other, as Jareth led her to a possible venue for her 16th birthday party. When we stopped in front of an impressive operahouse, I was surprised, not by the resemblance to the Paris Operahouse, but by how warm it was. (Eels are cold blooded creatures, so Jetsam and I had dressed warmly on this cold day by the water. To be able to take our coats off was such a relief and a surprise.) "My apologies," said Jareth, elucidating why it was so warm. "It's a spell that keeps the gardens in bloom all through the year. I don't own them, but I like to keep them in order anyway."
What extensive gardens they were, but Anastasia was here on a more important errand. I ascended the stairs with her but Jetsam slipping through the ivy archway into the garden did not go unnoticed by either of us. When we entered the grand foyer, I was immediately taken by the resemblance it had to the Parisian operahouse. The gold statues, the candles, the white marble staircases, everything was here.
"I've been here before," Anastasia said as we gazed in wonder at the splendor all around us. I gazed at her quizzically, asking myself, 'How could she have been here before?' as she searched for something on the compass rose on the landing where we were standing. I heard something open behind me and as I turned around, my mistress pulled me down into a hole in the floor that hadn't been there before.
As the door closed above us, I gazed at the hall of mirrors around us. 'My turn to search for something,' I thought as I felt around the edges for a switch. I guess watching The Phantom of the Opera had been a good idea after all for I soon found a switch that opened a doorway out of the torture chamber.
"Such a strange place," I said as we walked along a dark passage along along the bank of a narrow river. "But you said you've been here before."
"Not in real life," Ana admitted, "but I've seen images. (Of course she had. She was a Phantom fanatic, which was why I was able to see the movie. She must have watched it so many times that she knew the secret passages by heart. Some would call it obsessive; I called it useful.) However, I don't remember this passage. Mme. Giry pulled Raoul out of a different door than the one you found. If I'm thinking right though, we should be..."
She trailed off as we stopped in front of a red curtain. It was slightly darkened by the green glow I emitted in the dark passage. There was a moment of hesitation before I opened it, not because she was scared of what was behind it but because I had the feeling that she did know as well as I did.
I parted the curtain and we emerged in a cavern that was lit by at least a hundred candles. Ana lightly fingered the piano, caressing its keys with the tenderness of stroking a kitten. I drifted in front of the mass of candles towards another red curtain. 'If this is just like his lair,' I thought to myself, 'then the mannequin should be... right..."
I gave out a shriek of shock, which sent Anastasia running to my side. I could feel the fear in her as she looked at what I had found. A bridal mannequin was there all right, but it wasn't Christine's face looking back at us; it was Melissa's.
"What do you think?" said a voice. Ana yelped in fright and clung onto me as Jareth strolled out from behind the lace and gossamer of the wedding dress. "Why didn't you tell me he was right under our noses all this time?!" she shouted accusingly at him, voicing both of our thoughts.
"Because it would have blown the slight cover of secrecy I have in watching Lelouch. Also, I lied about not knowing anything about him. I always knew he was Erik's descendant."
I would have told him off for spying, but then I remembered that Erik was still alive and I smiled. Jareth knew a lot, but he didn't know everything. I saw Anastasia dive into the pool out of the corner of my eye; I followed close behind and I was at her side when she retrieved a purple orb from the bottom of the pool. 'It's about time we went home,' I thought.
'Agreed,' Ana thought back before kicking back to the surface. She shouted "It's perfect." to Jareth before coming back to me and as we swam out of Lelouch's hideout together, I marvelled that our phsycic connection was still active. (I had thought that night when Jetsam and me slept with her was just pure chance.)
'I swear, in faith, 'tis strange, 'tis passing strange', Ana thought as we swam along the passage. 'I've dreamed of coming down this same passage into the darkness, and now here I am swimming away from it.'
'What do you mean?' I thought back to her, genuinely curious even though I had a pretty good idea of her answer.
'Before I met you, even before I met Erik, I fancied the idea of coming down into the cavernous deep of the Paris operahouse and these underwater passages. I never knew I could experience it right here on Gaia, let alone in Port de Gambino. Now that I know it's here and it's real, all I want to do is run away. Quite paradoxical, is it not?'
'Indeed.' I had seen numerous similarities between Lelouch's hideout and his ancestor, Phoenix's. I ventured to point out some of the numerous similarities. When I was thinking about the mirror, Anastasia cut me off.
'Wait,' she thought. 'How do you know so much about the details of Erik's haven of music?' Oops, I was caught at last. I tried to hide my embarrassment as I stopped to think about the right words to tell her. I let her swim back to me before I explained myself. 'I... kind of watched Phantom of the Opera before I came to see you in Sunset Town.'
She didn't seem irritated with me at all, interested maybe, which somehow made me feel even more awkward; I would never let her see it though. (Author: Boys are so proud. stare ) 'What do you think of it?' she asked. Now came the hard part: telling her my theoretical comparisons of Erik's story to ours.
'I see how Melissa and Mat fall into place (as Christine and Raoul respectively), and maybe Jareth too since he's the manager of this operahouse. But I don't see how you or Jetsam and me fit inside the giant puzzle of this whole situation. Meg Giry is the obvious choice since she was Christine's best friend, but you're much more involved with Melissa than that. Madame Giry, whom you mentioned earlier, was my second choice considering you knowledge of and involvement with the Angel of Music, but she doesn't-'
'Actually, you have it right I think. (Good, we were both on the same train of thought.) I am both characters in a sense. I have Madame Giry's understanding of Erik's ways and how he reacts when he doesn't get what he wants, but I also have Meg Giry's naiivete. I had no idea what I was getting involved in until that day with the ruby.'
We continued on down the passage, bouncing theories about how the story would go around, until it widened into another lake. "Oh, no!" Ana said out loud. "Don't tell me we've gone around in a circle."
"A circle from where?" said a voice from above us. I knew who it was without looking up; Jetsam was looking down at us from the surface of wherever we had ended up. "If you need further convincing, just look at the koi swimming around your tail Flotsam."
I looked behind me and saw koi eying my tail with interest. 'Lelouch's lake definitely doesn't have- Hey! Don't do that!' I thought as I tried to bat the little buggers away. I heard Anastasia giggling, but I was too preoccupied to be embarrassed. She asked Jetsam where we had ended up. "Oh, forgive me mistress," he said as he stuck his feet in the water. "I should tell you about what I've seen before I forget."
He slid beneath the surface and led us behind the waterfall, a "bubble-fall" from where we were, to talk to us. The koi around my tail left as soon as I was behind the curtain of bubbles. He then launched into this drawn-out story about how he had wandered into the garden (He apologized for not asking permission from Ana.) and had seen numerous kinds of flowers. I didn't need to hear this. "Get to the point," I said impatiently. "I've had my fill of water today and would like to get back on dry land."
"Excuse me, Mr. "I-Know-Everything-Except-that-I-love-my-own-mistress," he retorted. Did I detect a hint of jealous mocking in his voice? I disregarded it as he continued with his story.
He had come to this koi pond when he saw Melissa and Lelouch out for a stroll in the gardens. (He didn't say Lelouch was with her, but I knew he had been.) He had dived into the pond and hid behind the waterfall where we were now. Lelouch had gone to tend to something elsewhere in the garden and left Melissa alone to herself.
He had let the lotus blossom, which we had created, drift to the surface of the pond in the hopes that Melissa would see it. From what I knew about geology, crystal didn't float, but by some sorcery or other (Jetsam's potion probably) our blossom did just that. Melissa had picked up the blossom and looked at it with interest; our collective message had resounded so that both he and Melissa heard it and Melissa's hands had flown to her temples as she screamed in pain. (This was good. Memories were beginning to resurface in her mind.)
She had bent down to splash her face with cool water in order to relieve the pain and had fallen in. Jetsam had swum out of his hiding place and had borne her up to the surface in his arms. She had given him a confused look, as if she had known him from somewhere, but he had disregarded it for Lelouch came running soon after he had set her on the shore, forcing him to retreat back behind the bubbling waterfall. Before he had gone away with Melissa though, he had dropped a purple orb into the pool.
Oh dear. Could it be he had wanted us to find it? Ana produced the orb we had found from her pocket. "Do you mean this Jetsam?" she asked, but I could tell in her voice that she was praying that it wasn't.
"That's the very same," he replied. *groan* Ohhhh, noooo. "Where did you get it from?"
I told him where. "We found it on our way out of Lelouch's hideout. We swam from there down the passage that led us out here into the garden."
"Maybe you'll show me another day. For now, I think now's the time to head home."
He read my mind. The moon shone brightly as we made our way back to the grotto. I heard Ana croon Sarah to sleep with "Music of the Night." I hadn't heard her so happy since the day that Sarah became part of our family. I drifted off, content, in the cool of the pool that night, happy that she was feeling better.
 srs diva 2011 xxl · Tue Jun 02, 2009 @ 02:19am · 2 Comments |
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