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Turned On	By : blackwaltz0 Category: +M through R > Phantasy Star Views: 2172 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Phantasy Star, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 13
- 14
- 15
(A/N: The book that Rune is reading in this chapter actually exists. It was orginally written in french, then translated into english by Arthur Waite. It is a great read that I recommend to anybody interested in magic and the like. Also, the song that Rika and Wren sing together is called 'If I Had Words', and it was written by a group called Westlife. I like that song, so I put it in the fic. I don't profess to own it. :3)
Wren had been as quiet as a ghost when he had slipped into Chaz and Rune's inn room without so much as a sound. The door did not even creak open, but if it had nobody would hear. Both the palmans seemed to be sleeping. He had brought some strong and albeit expensive medication with him, and you wouldn't have believed the strange look he had gotten from the pharmacist when Wren had just walked in from the street and asked for a cure for the common cold.

It had taken about five minutes for the storekeeper to explain to Wren that there was no cure for the common cold, and that the only things that would make his friend well again were time and gentle rest. He had filled out a different prescription for Wren anyway, giving him some tablets that might offer Chaz some brief respite from his illness. The android accepted the medicine gratefully and wound up overpaying the pharmacist, but Wren had already left the establishment by the time that the shopkeeper had counted all the meseta handed to him.

A room full of sick people always seemed to have a different air to it when compared to anything else. It was thicker, heavier and more humid. The shutters were drawn and slivers of light managed to creep through the cracks, cutting like a scalpel through the dimness of the room. The silence was mostly unbroken though, the day-to-day sounds of the town of Meese muffled and vague, as if they were coming from a different world. Talking, some laughter, and the ringing of a bell. Wren pulled the door to behind him and felt like he probably wasn't welcome here, or that he had no real justification to be here at all.

But he did have a reason to be there, so he need not think such things. Wren crept to Chaz's bedside and placed the boy's medicine on the table. Once he woke up and decided to take it he would begin to feel much better, both Chaz and Wren. The hunter was in bed and seemed to be sleeping restlessly, his cheeks flushed and just the tiniest expression of discomfort on his face. His breathing didn't sound completely right, either.

And Chaz had managed to kick most of his blankets off. He wouldn't get any better if he remained cold, so Wren made some small rearrangements without waking the boy until he was nicely covered up again. Chaz's forehead felt unnaturally hot, well, above the thirty eight Celsius that was supposed to be 'normal'. Wren smiled a little. Looks like he was not the only one going through strange temperature changes.

He was sure that he had forgotten something. What was it? Water, Chaz would need some water to go with his medication. Wren left the room momentarily to retrieve a glass of water from the kitchen and in the minute or three that he was gone Rune turned over and woke up, immediately regretting waking up because he still felt like shit. All he wanted to do was get up and walk off his cold, but he knew that he was pretty much trapped here until the others deemed him healthy and fit again.

Rune was contemplating sitting up and finishing his Eliphas Levi's 'History of Magic' book when Wren entered the room again. The esper immediately went totally still, a bit of a primordial reflex action when one is sick and a predator comes into the area. Mostly it was because when Rune had been a child and faked sickness to get out of his studies his teacher would come in sometimes to check on him, and so he had learned to mime sleep almost perfectly. It must have been a pretty good imitation, for Wren had not noticed that Rune had moved slightly. He was focussing on Chaz, not the sick magician.

From where he was lying Rune watched the android place the glass of clear water on the table and then closely inspect Chaz. The youth was their leader and an important member of their team, so Rune could understand why Wren might be concerned for his health. They had spent a great many hours together in the glacier too and maybe they had become better friends. Rune wouldn't have minded it if Kyra would come to check on him later as well, that would certainly make him happy.

The esper was just about to close his eyes and go to sleep again, hoping to push Kyra's visit closer by killing some time, when something else managed to catch his attention instead. He watched, mute, as Wren leant down slowly and brushed blond hair away from the boy's brow, kissing Chaz with tenderness on his sleeping lips. Wren lingered there for a short while, savoring the moment, then he pulled away and stood again, smiling almost wistfully. "Chaz�" He said in a soft tone, murmuring the hunter's name fondly.

Rune couldn't help himself from gasping a little. He was a crafty and sly person however, so the very second that Wren heard him and glanced up sharply, like he had been caught committing an unforgivable crime, Rune managed to turn that gasp into nothing more than a sleepy cough. He rolled over, uttering some gibberish words to make it seem like he was mumbling in his sleep.

He waited while Wren stood there, watching and analyzing to see if Rune was awake. Minutes passed. One, two, three, four. Even his old teacher hadn't been as bad as this, but maybe Wren had become as startled and as nervous as Rune was, hoping that he had not just made a terrible mistake. The magician went over what he had just seen. Wren kissing Chaz. He was sure it was not a product of his cold-addled imagination. Mostly sure, anyway.

It was with great relief that Wren finally concluded Rune had only been sighing in his sleep. He left the room self-consciously, reminding himself never to do that again when somebody else was in the room. He had grown careless. That had been far too close for comfort. If somebody in his party found out about he and Chaz there would be no telling of the consequences. And Chaz might hate him, hate him for giving their secret away.

Wren was not aware that it was now too late for that. Rune knew. He was sick and not a hundred percent sure on what he had seen, and as time would creep on he'd begin to distrust his memory more, but a seed of suspicion had been planted and soon it would begin to grow.

About a minute after Wren had left the room Rune sat up and rubbed his head, confused. The last thing he had ever expected was to see Wren kissing anybody, let alone Chaz. If he were to tell any of his friends would they believe him? Probably not. Well, maybe Kyra, but she was an admitted tattletale. The esper suddenly had a sobering thought. Rika liked Chaz. She mustn't be allowed to know about this. It would be in everyone's best interests if Rune clammed himself up.

Even if nobody else knew, Rune knew. There wasn't much that could change that now. The esper enjoyed knowing about secrets; it helped to bolster his ego and image as the fifth reverent Lutz. Rune picked up his dog-eared book from the floor beside his bed. "Boy, you owe me big time�" He muttered as he opened the tome, diving back down into the elaborate history of magic.

��

Not long after Wren had left the inn he found himself in the wilderness, mountain-climbing.

It wasn't something he thought he'd be doing that day, hanging onto a cliff edge for dear life while trying to search for new hand and footholds in the rocks and stone. Hadn't yesterday been enough of an ordeal without having to go through this again? But Wren didn't complain, because it was not in his nature to and he felt safer because the ground was not very far away. Having Rika ahead of him, or more accurately above him also helped.

Wren thought that Rika must have had some mountain goat DNA in her somewhere. She scaled the cliff side three times faster than he and with twice as much agility. The girl had said she wanted to pick some lovely white blossoms for Raja to make him feel better, but she had neglected to mention to Wren that most dezorian flowers bloomed upon the near-inaccessible cliff faces and mini mesas, where they would not become covered and choked with snow. This did not deter Rika from seeking them out, rather it made her more determined than ever to search.

"Please Rika, slow down. I cannot keep up with you." Wren called up to her, wincing away from a trickle of powdered snow and small stones that fell as Rika moved above him. There was a ledge that he could reach by putting his weight onto one foothold and then search out with his other leg, but Wren wasn't really confident that it would be able to hold him for long. Looking like he was concentrating hard, he tested the stone and it instantly snapped, falling to the ground below.

Rika was having a great time. She already had half a dozen snow blossoms carefully stashed in an ice-weed mesh bag slung across her back, but that wouldn't be enough to complete a full and pretty bouquet. She needed at least half a dozen more for that. Wren was kind of slowing her down greatly but she didn't mind it, Rika just wanted company and somebody to talk to while she searched. Glancing down, she could see that Wren was at least a good two and a half meters below. "If I go as slow as you are I'll never find all the flowers I need or reach the top. There's some stones to your left. They look like they might support you."

"Understood." Wren replied and inched closer to them, trusting Rika's words and the stones with his body. They held, but it was hard for him to describe to himself the helpless feeling of being suspended between a rock and a hard place, that hard place being the ground below. He was very glad that he didn't suffer from vertigo or a fear of heights as he pulled himself up closer to Rika's position, aware that such phobias were too innately palman for him to experience. However, had he not thought the same thing about attraction only a short while ago?

"Ooh, found another!" Rika exclaimed eagerly and stretched herself out over a dizzying drop to pluck a proud healthy snow flower nestled in the gully between two large boulders. She stowed it away with the others and made a daring leap towards the huge rocks, for half a second the girl completely airborne. Her dexterous hands caught upon the stone and she lifted herself effortlessly, sitting down on the boulder's surface and waiting for her friend to catch up. "How much further is it until the top?" She asked Wren.

"Quite a bit to go yet." Admitted the android. His sensors told him they were only a little under halfway to the summit. He was grateful that Rika had stopped for a rest. If she continued at her current pace she would eventually lose him, and what kind of person would he be if he lost one of his most important charges? A poor guardian indeed.

The numan sat on the stone in a near-formal manner, her back straight with her hands on her knees. The direction of the winds blew the continuous storm hard against the other side of the small mountain, leaving only a moderate snowfall and a slight shadow on their side. Rika could hear Wren making progress to climb up to her spot as she gazed out over the blurred horizon. Meese looked like a little toy village from her vantage point. She knew that somewhere within that village Chaz slept peacefully, working off the sickness that had claimed him. Poor Chaz. The boy who carried the weight of Algo on his shoulders.

"When we get to the top would it be okay if I talked to you about something, Wren?" The words just slipped out of her mouth like escaped prisoners, trapped inside for so long. A moment later she regretted speaking and wished that she could take the words back, for she was setting herself up for a conversation that she didn't really want to have.

After a minute of struggling Wren's head popped up from the other side of the large rocks. He swung an arm over the protrusion and used it to anchor himself there momentarily. "You can talk to me about anything you wish." Wren stated paternally, hauling himself up onto the boulder next to Rika. The whole mountain-climbing activity was extremely vigorous stuff. He would have been totally exhausted by now had he been anything other than an android.

They sat there together for a while, admiring the scenery. The ledge was not high enough for the view to be dizzying, but it was not low enough for either of them to be certain that if they fell they would land unharmed. In an hour or two the sun would descend and the sky would burn into a variety of oranges and pinks, the clouds translucent and fogging up the sunset. It would be a truly spectacular sight to behold. Rika couldn't get enough of things like that. She had to catch up on all the sunsets she had missed from her life before the outside world.

Rika had never seen a sunset from the rocky side of a snow encrusted mountain, cold and crisp yet somehow refreshing. She turned her head a little to look at her current companion. Wren had probably never seen anything like this either. Rika felt that she could identify with Wren in that particular manner. She and Wren both possessed great knowledge and wisdom, but held next to no real-life experience. They were both learned, yet learning at the very same time. The only true difference between them was that Rika had been created to gather and absorb these new experiences, while Wren had not been granted that same privilege. It was only by pure circumstance that they were walking the same path together.

She knew that she owed a great deal to Wren. Seed had given her life and substance, thought and reason, feelings and emotions, everything that had set her above the average biomonster. Seed had implanted in her a sense of self, while Wren had expanded on that sense of self with his teachings. He had taught her how to read and write, basic and then advanced mathematics, history, geography, anthropology, the sciences and sociology. Thirteen years of study crammed into six months of daily lessons. She missed those times a little, where the only thing that she needed to worry about was keeping pace with her heavy curriculum.

Her world had expanded since then, enormously, from one tiny bio-development plant hidden a valley to encompass an entire star system she was trying to comprehend all at once. Sometimes taking in all that information was overwhelming, but this was what Seed had prepared her for. Rika's very existence was to understand and defend Algo. At least Wren was with her now, somebody she never had expected to meet in person. In the past he had only been an image or a voice within a computer system, but now he was the closest thing to a parent she had left.

"You seem to be thinking very intently, Rika. May I ask you of your thoughts?" Wren said gently, shattering the silence that had only been punctuated by the wind. Rika jumped a bit at having her train of thought derailed so suddenly. It was unlike Wren to start a conversation, especially in a manner that pried into Rika's thoughts so shamelessly. The numan girl had noticed that Wren seemed to have changed noticeably after being removed from Zelan and placed into real, honest life. These changes had manifested more dramatically in the last week or so. He smiled more, talked more, and genuinely appeared to show an interest in other people's problems.

That was the real reason why Rika had invited him out into the wilderness, where the others could not reach them. She desperately needed to talk to somebody, anybody, and Wren was one of the people that she trusted the most. Rika brushed some bright pink hair behind one of her pointy ears and sighed deeply, like somebody aware that they were going to step off a precipice and into the dark, invisible unknown.

She couldn't wait to reach the top to talk about her problems. If she did she might lose her nerve. "I was just thinking. You and Chaz seem to have become rather good friends lately. Am I right?" Rika calmly asked the android, completely unaware of how deeply that friendship had delved.

Wren looked blank. There was no other way he could think to look like without seeming guilty or worse. They were friends, that much was true. That was all Rika needed to know. "You are correct. It is very important to keep our party together as closely as we can. Chaz is our leader. I would like to get along with him as well as I am able." He had not lied, Wren could at least be proud of that, but omission was only a half-truth, a weak truth.

Rika looked down into her lap, fidgeting with the small protrusions of her retracted claws lying upon her knuckles. The girl could rip any kind of creature under the sun to bloody pieces using those claws, it just seemed so bizarre that that the same girl could struggle so much with simple words. This vaguely reminded Wren of something. She bore the same sort of expression that Chaz Ashley had worn many days ago, back within the night of the machine center. Oh no. Oh no.

"Well, because you have been hanging around him so much do you know if Chaz is seeing anybody right now?" Rika blurted out in one breath. The heavy pressure she had felt against her chest drained away with each word spoken. She smiled a little, sadly. "It's just that he seemed so depressed a short while ago, and he made some kind of reference about liking somebody in the bar the other night. Now he seems much happier, freer, I suppose, so I guessed that he must have made up his mind and gone out with somebody. I was wondering who it could be."

What a dilemma Wren was in. Rika had guessed right when she assumed that Chaz's recent vigor stemmed from a new love interest in his life, but Wren was absolutely certain that Rika could never make a correct guess on who that love interest might be. She probably thought that Chaz had hooked up with one of the women from a town they had passed through on their travels. If the android told her the truth he would not only hurt Rika, but he would also hurt himself and Chaz as well. The hunter had made him promise never to tell anybody about his feelings for Rika. Wren would just have to keep that promise. It would be his duty.

"I do know that Chaz is seeing somebody. That much is true." He informed her softly, brushing snowflakes from his armor. Rika was trembling a bit from the cold, or maybe not the cold, but she had wisely decided to dress warmly this time. Wren hit the nail on the head with his next question. "Is that the reason why you asked me to follow you out here? Because you wanted to ask me that?"

The girl felt her heart sink like a stone. She had done a very courageous thing in facing her inner emotions and trying to talk to somebody else about her feelings, but now it seemed like it had all been for naught. Chaz had already found somebody else. Why hadn't she admitted her feelings to him sooner? She was so stupid. "Yes, that's the reason. I didn't know who else to talk to. I really like him, Wren. It might be hard for you to understand, but I think I could be in love with him. Chaz has been so strong for all of us, even if it has left himself weak and vulnerable. I admire him greatly for that."

Before Wren could answer her Rika continued. Once somebody has cracked the hard surface on a deep inner problem it was hard to stop talking about it until all was said. If only she knew just how desperately and with feeling Chaz had spoken to Wren about such a similar matter. It would have solved all her problems. Rika had turned towards her android friend and looked unhappy, cold winds from the north stinging her cheek. "But to be honest, I don't really understand how I feel. I don't know what love is. I've only ever read about it before. How can I be certain what I feel for Chaz is real honest love? I just don't know what to do."

Wren knew that he had to ask himself the very same question. He understood a little too well about what Rika was going through. He did like Chaz very much, and that sense of like was growing stronger the more time he spent with the boy, but was that all that it was? Just like? Wren wasn't sure, so he did not know how to confidently reply to Rika's question. He was no expert on this. All he could do was tell her practically the same thing that he had told Chaz. "The only way that you will be able to receive a conclusive answer is to speak to Chaz directly. You cannot accomplish anything by keeping it to yourself."

"You're probably right." Rika agreed from where she sat, but did not seem cheered up by the solution. If anything it made her seem even sadder. Wren really disliked seeing Rika upset, but there wasn't much more that he could do for her besides what he had just said. The girl laughed nervously, with ironical humor. "But would it surprise you for me to say that I'm too scared to talk to Chaz about it? I know that Chaz is just a normal kid from Motavia but he has been elevating himself so much since he became our leader. I don't want him to think lowly of me if I tell him how I feel and he thinks it's strange because I'm a scientific project. What if he wants a real girl? One from his home world with normal ears and a normal life?"

"Do you honestly believe that Chaz would think like that?" Wren asked seriously, paying total attention now. The numan girl was being slightly dramatic and chances were that she didn't completely believe her own words, but it was the doubt that was the dangerous part. With doubt one could be led to believe anything. Rika shook her head at Wren but the doubt still clung to her like a sweaty grip, refusing to let go.

The android thought of what next to say. Trying to understand palman reasoning was draining. "It does surprise me that you would be afraid, but I can also understand that fear. You can either speak to Chaz about how you feel and have courage, or you can remain as you are. I believe that you judge him too harshly. Chaz is a good man."

It did seem like a very simple decision when Wren spelt it out that way. But being simple in theory did not make it simple in practice. Rika envied the girls who seemed so normal, easily filling in an empty slot of the world with their presence. Truthfully, Rika had never really been very comfortable with herself since she had seen the real world and what real girls were supposed to look like. It only worsened her self-image as a horned science experiment born to fight. How could a person like Chaz be interested in something like that?

"But I guess it doesn't matter anymore, because Chaz has found somebody else. I wish I had gone to him sooner. Now I have missed my chance." Rika sighed. She took off the woven bag that she had been carrying and plucked a snowy flower from its confines. The white petals were delicate and thin, like tiny downy feathers. The blossom smelt mildly like vanilla. Rika thoughtfully twirled the stem between two fingers. "I wonder if Chaz loves her?" She mused out loud.

Tentatively Wren reached out and placed a hand on Rika's comparatively diminutive shoulder. He couldn't tell her that the girl in question was not really a girl at all, and that he was sitting right next to her. He also could not tell her that Chaz was only interested in him now, as that was certainly not true. The hunter loved Rika and wanted to be with her more than he wanted to be with Wren. He would have told her this if he had not been bound by a promise to never say a word. Convincing Rika that she should speak to Chaz was the right thing to do, even if it meant that she might take Chaz away from him. At least they would both get to be happy. Wren was not so selfish as to keep that from happening.

Even if it meant that Wren would lose Chaz. What else could he do? He cared for them both, more than he cared about himself. "Chaz may have found somebody else, but that doesn't mean that you still do not have a chance. Talk to him. It may be that the person he is with does not deserve him anyway. You may be able to offer him more than they can." Rika looked at him, not quite willing to hope but desperately wanting to. As for Wren, saying those things really hurt him, but he continued anyway. "I am sure that Chaz would prefer you over anybody else."

"Do you think so?" Rika pressed obstinately, beginning to feel relieved. She had just wanted somebody to mutely listen to her vent out her problems, but she hadn't expected her old teacher to be so knowledgeable about love and relationship issues. Where on Dezoris had he learnt stuff like that from? Rika raised one hand and lightly touched the tip of one of her pointed ears. "Do you really think that Chaz would like somebody like me?"

"You should ask him that, not I." Wren replied, looking out over the cloudy snow-blinded horizon. With his hand on her shoulder he pulled the numan girl a little closer to him. Softly he added as he inspected her; "I cannot see anything wrong with you. It might not seem like much coming from somebody like me, but by palman standards I think that you are beautiful, Rika."

Rika smiled sincerely this time. Wren would not lie to her, so that must be what he genuinely thought. She put the flower back in her bag and hugged her friend. She had made the right decision in bringing him out here and finally talking about her feelings for Chaz for the very first time. She felt so much lighter for it. "Thank you Wren, for being a good friend. I'm going to sit on these thoughts for a little while longer so I can absorb them properly, and if everything seems okay I'll talk to Chaz after we come back from the Air Castle."

But a good friend probably wouldn't have hidden the fact that they were dating Chaz behind Rika's back. Well, if Rika talked to the hunter she would never ever have to know about it. Wren felt drained, and not just from the climb up the side of the mountain either. "I am glad I was able to help you." He said.

"Will you promise not to tell anybody what we just talked about? I don't want anybody else finding out about it until I'm ready." Rika blushed a bit. "Especially Chaz."

So he was to be bound to two separate promises of silence. It would be so much easier if he could just push Chaz towards Rika and Rika towards Chaz, but the both of them were just too overprotective of their own feelings in case they were hurt. Maybe they would make a better pair than Wren had originally assumed, as they certainly thought along the same lines.

It was strange. While Wren did indeed want that to happen, another part of him did not want the numan and the hunter to pair up at all. Those duplicitous thoughts made it difficult for Wren to understand how he truly felt. He raised his hand a little anyway and gave her his pledge. "I promise that I shall not say a word." He vowed.

Rika seemed satisfied with that. She trusted him. Nodding her acknowledgement, she turned her gaze back to the horizon. A tiny little speck in the distance gravitated toward a dark snowy mass, a frosted-over forest. Not long after that she watched a few tall trees begin to fall. A dezorian lumberjack was cutting down some more wood before the darkness seeped into the sky, Rika guessed. Even though horrible things were happening in the world and their star system, people still continued to live their normal lives. They were either oblivious or spiting the darkness by living as well or as happily as they could.

That concept held a certain beauty within it. All at once Rika didn't want to leave the rocky outcropping that showed her a large slice of the dezorian world. She felt bonded to it, like she had become a stone herself. Soon the lights would flicker on in the houses of Meese and nighttime would become attracted to them like moths to a flame. Rika hummed a simple, musical tune as she waited for the first few lights to appear in the distance.

It was a very short, sweet, simple song. With her hands gently folded in her lap she remembered the words, reciting them to the air and the wind. Rika had only recently discovered this, but whenever she felt lost or confused singing was usually able to calm her down and make her feel better again. Songs were like stories; they could be discovered anywhere. She vaguely remembered Hahn singing it long ago, back when she had been so young and Alys had still been alive.

The song only contained one stanza, but it was steady and very pretty along with the tune, as most love songs were. Rika had almost forgotten that she wasn't alone. "If I had words to make a day for you�" She sung, repeating the verse a second time.

"I'd sing you a morning golden and true�" Wren answered softly from her side, mimicking the rest of the verse that he had learned from Rika the first time. The girl looked toward the android and grinned. He really did have a good voice. It was nice to hear him using it sometimes.

"I would make this day last for all time�" Rika added, her tone and pitch lovely and perfect. She liked this song. It reminded her a little of how big and wonderful Algo was, along with the people living within it. It also reminded her slightly of Chaz.

"Then fill the night deep with moonshine." They finished together in perfect harmony. By herself Rika sounded good, and by himself Wren seemed to have talent as well, but together it was different. Something more was added, though it was hard to tell just what. The first of the little lights of Meese popped up when both Wren and Rika fell silent. They looked at each other. Rika laughed while Wren just smiled. That had been unexpected for the both of them, but it had been fun.

It really was time for them to go. Hanging out in the wilderness in the early evening was dangerous, as that was when the temperature began to drop and all manner of nasty creatures came out to hunt. Wren rose from where he had been sitting, then extended a hand and graciously helped Rika to her feet. It seemed like maybe they had become a little closer since they had had that discussion and sung that song. "Let us go back to Meese." Wren said.

Rika searched the pockets of her fur-lined coat. "I brought an escapipe so we wouldn't have to climb all the way back down again. Oh, I didn't get all the flowers I needed to make a proper bouquet. I hope Raja doesn't mind getting a smaller one, but it's the thought that counts, right?" She located the item in her inventory and was about to activate it when she addressed Wren once more. "Thanks again for helping me with my problems. I think that we sound really good. We should sing together more often."

"Perhaps." The android replied neither positively nor negatively, taking Rika's hand again so that when she used the escapipe it would encompass the both of them. Things might become complicated if they were separated. The world went dark as the girl utilized the relocation item. Wren knew that he had a lot of thinking to do before they left Dezoris and headed back to the Air Castle. Everything had become fiercely complicated already after what he had told Rika.

And he didn't even know about Rune yet, about what Rune knew.
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