Dantega:Volume 2 Chapter 4
Chapter 14: Northbound Reunion
(PART 1)
The group of Ubica, Napoleon, Tsubiri, Daey, Trojia, Strauphius, and Niomyo have been walking north for a couple days. After staying at a couple towns along the way, the group has exhausted their supply of money and are now resting by a rather small lake.
It is a beautiful and sunny day, and the scenery around this lake seems like a perfect occasion for a picnic. Green grass occupied by numerous colors of poppy flowers stretch as far as the eye can see and few trees spot the grassland and the areas around the lake.
Ubica walks to the flowers and intentionally falls on his back, he sighs and shuts his eyes to let the warmth of the sun beat on his face.
Tsubiri walks up to him and says, "You're not wearing the jacket I bought you you jerk."
He looks up at her and can see right under her skirt, he flinches and turns away quickly. "Because it's not cold out, and I'd prefer not to look like an idiot wearing that thing unless I absolutely have to."
Tsubiri frowns, "Haven't you ever heard that gifts should be cherished!? You seem to like that stupid beanie that Trojia got you!"
Ubica is wearing the beanie, though there is no need for the jacket, it is still somewhat cold to him so he feels the need to keep his ears warm.
"I don't like this thing either! It's just that my ears are cold!"
Tsubiri reveals a lecherous smile and her eyes twinkle, "Your ears are cold huh?"
She pounces on him, takes off his beanie and chucks it away.
"Uaaaahh! What are you doing!?" Ubica desperately shouts as he's being manhandled by this nineteen year old girl.
"Muhuhahahahaha! Allow me to warm up your stupid ears!!!"
She grabs both of his ears and begins to yank on them extremely hard. The loud screams of Ubica mixed with the evil witch like laugh of Tsubiri causes a scene and everyone gathers to witness the carnage.
"This is all fun and dandy, but the problem is we're broke." says Napoleon as he huffs air out of his nose in annoyance. He and Niomyo are leaning against a tree.
"So what are we going to do?" asks Niomyo as she takes off her shoes.
"When we get to the next town, we all have to look for jobs."
She hears him say this and says what comes to her mind first, "We don't have time for something like that!"
He looks at her and then back to Ubica and Tsubiri, because of their wrestling, different colored flower pedals are flying all over and makes him giggle as he says, "We also don't have a choice. Let's just hope that there will be some high paying jobs that won't take too long."
Niomyo walks into the shallow end of the crystal clear water. "Yeah, I guess your right."
Napoleon sees her in the water and asks, "How does the water feel?"
She kicks her legs, splashing the water she turns and smiles, "It's great!"
He chuckles at her kid like reaction and proceeds to take off all of his clothes. Niomyo is instantly flustered at the sight of Napoleon in his briefs, though he is quite tall and thin, his body is perfectly toned so one can see all of his muscles clearly. Napoleon jogs into the water and floats on his back, he smiles and shuts his eyes.
Niomyo is zoning out on his abs like a pre-teen school girl seeing her favorite Idol shirtless in a magazine. Napoleon sees her staring at him and with a confused look on his face asks, "What?"
She jumps in surprise and scrambles to find the right words to say. "Eh uh nothing... It's just that this kind of thing... It doesn't seem like you."
Napoleon back paddles in circles as he says, "These kind of carefree moments..."
He once again glances to Ubica and the rest. Now Trojia, consumed with jealousy is trying get a relentless Tsubiri off of him, Daey is picking flowers while laughing and Strauphius is wearing eyes that seem to enjoy this scene in an envious way. Napoleon slashes his hands in the water and loudly laughs, an occurrence never before heard nor seen by the group.
Tsubiri halts her vicious attack and they all stop to stare; they wonder what is so funny that he would actually show a non General like emotion. Napoleon never really had a childhood, he was the son of a military man and his mother died shortly after his birth, so he was raised by a strict father who demanded discipline.
His father grew ill from an old wound and on his deathbed, asked a then fourteen year old Napoleon to fulfill his wish of joining the La'Juutian army. Naturally Napoleon agreed and after a full year of living on the streets, he joined the army when he reached the required age.
These events made his childhood rough and rotten, he doesn't remember the last time he actually had fun, but seeing the others kid like rowdiness makes it feel like they are all sharing a moment of enjoyment similar to the way the common youth would.
After a few long moments Napoleon finally stops laughing, he looks at Niomyo who is stunned just like the others and says with a smile, "I guess they're starting to rub off on me."
"Woah I think the sky is falling!!!" shouts Ubica who is completely shocked about Napoleon's laughter.
"Really!?"
Like an utter idiot Tsubiri took him seriously and looks up to the sky.
"Hahahahahah! You're such an air head!"
Tsubiri, knowing that she had just made a fool of herself can just frown in embarrassment while Ubica mercilessly laughs in her face.
She readies to slap him and swings her hand down, but Ubica grabs it and shows a wide grin, revealing his large canines.
"Hey hey, why don't we join Napoleon?"
"Huh?"
He grabs her waist and lifts her from her mounted position, he then stands up and throws her onto his shoulder.
"Whaaaa! What are you doing!?"
"As revenge for the death of my ears, you're going for a dip!"
Tsubiri starts pounding on his back and shouting, "Don't you dare! Don't- kyaaaaahhh!"
Ubica takes off running with Tsubiri in tow, he takes a giant leap and before she knows it, she is under water in the middle of the lake.
Tsubiri pops her head out of the water and what she sees is Ubica laughing at her in a mocking tone. They are both soaked with all of their clothes on, she is actually quite bitter about this but these feelings of anger quickly disperse when she thinks to herself, 'Chance!'
Since the split of the group a few days ago, Ubica has been paying most of his attention to Daey due to the death of Rudo. All be it this is a good reason for her being ignored, she feels that even when he wasn't with Daey, he ended up being around Trojia. So at that time, she promised herself that if they ever were to be alone together, she'll go to any lengths to seduce him.
Tsubiri throws her arms over his shoulders and clings to him, she wraps her legs around his back so he can't get her off. Their faces are only a few inches away from each other and this makes Ubica extremely nervous. He tries to move his head back but she pulls the back of his neck closer to her, thus making it impossible for him to get away.
"W-What are you doing Tsubiri!?"
She runs her fingers through his hair and says, "I can't swim."
Ubica raises his eyebrow, "Are you kidding?"
"Nope."
"Pfft... Hahahah what are you three years old??"
She yanks his hair back causing him to abruptly stop his laughter. "THAT'S WHY I TOLD YOU NOT TO THROW ME IN THE DAMN WATER!!"
"Ngggyyaaaahhh that hurts!!!"
Daey and Trojia are watching the chaotic scene of Ubica once again getting beat up by Tsubiri. Daey is still merrily picking flowers, "They sure get along well." she says as she spots a multicolored purple daisy and like an excited child, grabs it and marvels in its beauty.
Trojia folds her arms and sharply replies, "They get along too well if you ask me." She sits down hard and as a result kicks up a batch of flower pedals.
"Geez Trojia, you're such a baby when it comes to Ubica." Daey says while wrapping the stems of a few dozen flowers with a piece of string she pulled from her dress.
Trojia pouts and says under her breath, "I can't help it..."
To tease her a little, Daey flashes her self made bouquet in Trojia's face and says, "Hey take a look, it's pretty right? I wonder what Ubica will say when I give it to him?"
Trojia turns slowly and looks at her with eyes that scream bloody murder.
Daey backs up and nervously says, "Okay okay I was joking, relax."
She wonders how angry Trojia would be if she found out what occurred between her and Ubica back at the stone house. Ubica's voice rings in her head and she tenderly smiles as she looks at the colorful bouquet. This tender smile suddenly turns into a 'I'm already ahead of you and you don't even know it yet!' smile, and with a subtle competitive tone she says, "You don't need to get so worked up all the time. It's not like you guys are lovers or anything, you haven't even kissed yet."
As soon as the word kiss leaves her lips, Trojia's face turns beet red and her shoulders rise.
Just by seeing her reaction, Daey drops her bouquet and along with it her jaw. "Have you!?"
"I get it I get it! I'm sorry so stop pulling my hair!" shouts Ubica.
Tsubiri releases her death grip and tries to tidy up the scruffy look of his hair after almost being torn off. Ubica wraps his left arm around her back and says, "Well then, since you can't swim we should get out of the water."
Tsubiri gestures as if she is about to say something but then stops, she can't find it in her heart to say that she just doesn't want to let go of him yet. He gently moves her hand away from his shoulder and in a dream like motion he steps on to the surface of the water and stands like he would be if he was on land.
He is holding Tsubiri's hand to keep her afloat and she is looking up at him from the water as the sun shines behind him making his wet white long sleeved v-neck shirt transparent, and making his silver hair glitter like a diamond.
He lifts her up out of the water and holds her close, she embraces him tightly as if she is afraid to fall in the water and sink.
"It's okay... Put your feet down." He says with a soft smile that oozes the sense of security.
Tsubiri looks at this beautiful smile, she hesitates at first, but she puts her feet on the water surface. Much to her surprise she finds that she can stand perfectly.
"Huh?"
"Don't let go of my hands or you'll sink."
"Okay."
Ubica tosses her right arm over his shoulder and grabs her waist with his left hand, his right and her left hand are interwoven and now they are in a position for the waltz.
He pulls her close to him and with a funny accent asks, "Shall we dance?"
He begins to hum a tune, and with his lead they begin dancing.
"Ooh you're pretty good." says Ubica.
Tsubiri is speechless with awe; though she can't seem to find words, her feet are moving perfectly in motion with his. This surprises her because she hasn't danced since she was a kid, and now she's doing twirls like she belongs in a ballroom. She wears a large smile full of happiness when she thinks that this unbelievable moment in time is happening because of a little white lie, she actually can swim, and very well for that matter.
But since she said that she couldn't in order to cling to him, she is now participating in a romantic dance that should only belong in a fairy tale.
The song Ubica was humming ends, and with it the trance that Tsubiri was under through this whole process. It suddenly hits her that what had just occurred defies the laws of gravity, it is impossible for a human to stand on water, and she remembers a story in the bible when it once said that the Son of God once did to prove that he was no normal man.
"Ubica... What are you?" she asks with eyes full of wonder.
He doesn't answer, instead he just stares at her with a strained smile which makes her want to ask more.
"Those two demons back at the stone house, it seemed like you knew them pretty well. Also...The way you saved me when I was falling in the abyss, and now we are standing on water."
She rests her hands on his chest, much to Ubica's surprise she is not freaked out by any of this; on the contrary she is wearing smile that exudes acceptance. He takes his hand and gently moves the wet magenta hair that covers her gold eyes to the side, he gently slides his hand down her face until he rests it on her cheek and softly says, "I guess I can't keep my past a secret forever."
It looks as if he is about to say something, the tension feels like it can be cut with a dull knife and she can't contain her excitement in hearing him tell her who he really is.
"But I can't... Not yet."
As if wanting a certain present for Christmas only to unwrap it and find that it is the complete opposite of want you wanted, Tsubiri is gravely disappointed at his words. She is about to say her buts when Ubica holds his index finger up in front of her face to halt her speech.
He looks disappointed as well when he says, "I'm sorry... Just know that it is a past that fills my heart with grief by just thinking about it, I don't have the strength to explain it with words just yet..."
Tsubiri grabs his hand and moves it away from her face. "What are you so afraid of?"
He smiles and shifts his eyes over her shoulder toward Trojia and Daey. "I don't even know, to be perfectly honest with you."
Tsubiri starts laughing and it catches Ubica off guard, she pushes off him and falls in the water. He scrambles to get her out of the water thinking she can't swim but to his surprise she is already swam more than ten feet away and is now floating effortlessly on her back.
"Hey! You can swim!?"
"Hahaha of course I can swim."
Ubica frowns and is walking after her while she back paddles away. "Then why did you?---"
He is sharply interrupted by Tsubiri's laugh. "You're so damn dense Ubica, just think about why I'd fib about it for a moment."
Ubica holds his chin as he ponders, and in his usual oblivious state he comes to the conclusion that she was just teasing him again.
While Ubica was wondering this, he lost track of where he was and walking is now directly over Tsubiri, she grabs his pant leg to keep him from stepping on her and shouts, "Watch where you're going!"
"Ahh sorry about that, I was zoning out."
She huffs air out of her nose and smiles, she's looking up at him with amazed eyes that are large with pleasure at the fact they are seeing something worth remembering.
Throughout her whole life, Tsubiri has never had anyone that she felt she could call a friend, and only until a couple of weeks ago she would say that she'd rather have it that way if someone were to ask her why. That would be an obvious lie however; the truth is, she has always been alone, her parents abandoned her as an 4 year old toddler at the La'Juutian castle gates. In La'Juune, this kind of thing happened often and was shunned upon as a death sentence for the child, the reason being that the castle guards were ordered by the King to send them to be raised in a ruthless labor camp, or just kill them on the spot if the camps were overcrowded.
These labor camps forced men, women, and children of all ages to work unreasonable hours for mere slave wages. There is a branch of government called the Exes, they are in charge of monitoring peoples wealth, debt, and other financial matters. If they find someone they deem fit of being below the poverty line, they will send out Collectors to get them. If one were to be caught by these Collectors, they would be sent away to do whatever amount of time the Exes executives feel that is needed in the camps.
Even when Napoleon's father died and it left him homeless, he had to spend a year running away from them until he was old enough to join the military. Joining the armed forces is the only way to avoid persecution. The problem is that La'Juune very rarely allows women to join its ranks, thus making it very hard for women to escape such a fate, and the children are already doomed no matter what gender if younger than fifteen.
This tactic to send the poor and homeless to do hard manual labor was thought as an ingenious plan to keep the country wealthy and save people from an impoverished life; and for the most part it worked. 'The City of Grandeur' can be called this only because there is literally no poor that resides in its walls.
When Tsubiri was abandoned, one of the guards at the gate thought that she resembled his daughter and felt pity, so instead of handing her over to Exes, he brought her onto the castle grounds and gave her to the head of maintenance who was his close friend.
From then on she was raised to follow orders and would do odd jobs in and around the castle, though she was always working, it wasn't a fraction as bad as the camps, at least at the castle she had a stable diet and a roof over her head at all times.
She grew up as a servant until she was 8 years old, when on the fateful day of the Battle of La'Juune, she happened to stumble upon a panicked Xavier who got separated from his family during the attack. Not knowing that this crying kid was the Prince, she grabbed his hand and took him through a barrage of flaming arrows and led him to the innards of the castle.
At that point in time the castle was already infiltrated by a few Trojan, and Eiyalazonian soldiers who were killing anybody they could get their hands on, so the two of them spent most of their time desperately trying to get away from them and hiding.
By sheer luck they stumbled upon a secret passageway that allowed them to escape from the soldiers, after following the dark tunnels they eventually caught up with a fleeing royal family. As compensation for saving Xavier's life she was given royal status and not too long after was getting trained in a prestigious martial arts school, upon her graduation she was offered the job as the royal body guard of the Prince.
Though this sounds like she has had a blessed life, she hated her upbringing because she never had anyone who truly cared for her except that guard who saved her from an even more miserable existence. But much to her dismay, she found out that the guard had been killed while protecting the castle during the battle, and as a result she had no one. No family and no friends. So she shut herself in and avoided conversations with others unless she was given some kind of order.
That is until she met a certain lad who showed her unconditional kindness when he defied the Prince and lent her his back, this lad who's smile warms her to the core and can somehow make all of her past negativity towards people vanish with the sound of his voice. The lad that she is looking up at is the one person that brought out her true personality and integrated it into her daily life as if she was never hiding it in the first place,
"I can't speak for the others..." she says with a soft smile. "But for me, I would gladly stay by your side forever... No matter what you are Ubica."
Tsubiri smiles and gently back paddles to shore leaving a shocked and somewhat flustered Ubica in her wake.
He puts his hand on his chest and can actually feel something beating. His whole body expression turns happy and excited, that is until the heartbeat quickly stops, and this results in a pained and guilty expression.
He bites his lip and shows a strained smile, "Those words are too kind to be directed at me... I know... That if you knew what I've actually done, you would come to despise me..."
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