Chapter 10

Emerald Waves

"I brought back your cloak." Leah found Golbez still standing at the place near the dunes. She was fully clothed again, though her wet hair still was proof of the bath she had takenearlier.

"I'm sorry that Tristan took it from you, but you know how he is: always trying to impress the girls… I'd better watch myself, right?" She laughed, though stopped as Golbez wasn't even looking at her. "I've dried it in the sun. Here." Golbez took the offered black bundle wordlessly.

"Well… Then I'll go back to the Hovercraft… Maybe we can continue this highly interesting talk later…" The words were not spoken out reproachful, but provoking. Even more, they succeeded in bringing a slight grin to Golbez's face, because the remark could have been as well his one.

"Cheerful today, aren't we?" He finally spoke. "Has it to do with the fact that you remembered something?"

"Why are you bringing up this subject once again?"

The woman looked down and started to draw some designs in the sand with the tip of her boot. "I don't know if it is worth anything… I can only remember the coastline and that isn't very helpful, right? I could have seen it on a painting..." Biting her lip, she looked up:

"Say, do you still think that I'm this Dawn?"

"Listen… "Golbez's thoughts were still on the encounter with Edward... "No matter if any memories you have now or later fit into Dawn's picture or not, the point is that she died by falling from a cliff, a dagger in her heart… How could anyone survive that?"

"A dagger in her… heart, you say?" Leah suddenly avoided his gaze. "No… no one could survive this…" She sounded far away.

"Leah?" Golbez's deep voice enquired suspicious.

"Nothing!" The young woman smiled. "I think Edward and Tristan want to break up as long as the sea is calm as this. Are you coming?"

Frowning, Golbez followed her.

xOx

Though Edward's eyes were still slightly red with weeping, he managed to steer the hovercraft surprisingly deft around the reefs--though also very slow.

"If I might humbly ask: Is it possible to speed the vehicle up just a bit? If we go with this speed any longer, I might as well just have waited for spring for a ship to take me to Mysidia," Golbez grumbled impatiently.

"I'm well aware that I'm no good and that I can't please especially you of all people…" Edward sighed. "But this here is a dangerous territory--one wrong move or a wave too high and we will end up on one of the sharp rocks. Though I wonder if this wouldn't be better than--" He trailed off and shook his head slightly, as if chasing away a gloomy thought.

Golbez watched the whole scene with slight uneasiness. Was Edward really yearning for death? "No matter what, it seems that the little bard isn't as stable as Cecil and his friends want to believe… Here we are--two people who have to bear the heritage of the past, and two for whom the past doesn't even exist, though in Leah's case it is not wanted…"

Tristan, on the other hand, only seemed to live for every piece of gold the future held in store for him. Right now, riches were beckoning once again and thus the swindler was busy giving Edward directions with the help of the map Leah was holding:

"Okay, it's pretty far away from the shore. And a bit more west…"

The Hovercraft had been gliding smoothly along the riffs until now, but the journey was getting rougher by the second as waves started to crash against the craft's sides, making it shake.

"I don't like this at all…!" Edward tried his best to hold the vehicle calm, but secretly he wondered how long he could keep this up. "Seems that a storm is coming!" In fact the sky was slowly being bathed in a black-green colour and drizzling rain began to fall.

"Shouldn't we turn back and wait on land until the weather is better?" Leah asked shivering, her wet hair clinging to her forehead. Although the rain itself was not cold, the wind was--something even Golbez remarked.

"No. We're too far away from the shore already and the island should be pretty near…"

"Exactly!" Tristan was still confident, although his clothes were soaked, too. "I can already see it--" he pointed towards the distance where now a brown, stony structure came into view.

"There? How shall I reach it? It's surrounded by reefs--the hovercraft will never fit through them!" Edward shouted against the waves, which were getting stronger by the minute.

"You must circle around the isle--on the side pointing towards the open sea there should be a gap between the reefs!" The island was in a decent range of visibility now and although he wanted to escape the raging sea as fast as possible, Edward slowed down the craft to keep it from crashing into one of the stone columns rising amidst the waves.

"I wonder why no one ever before has found this island." Golbez frowned.

"As I said before, it's probably because it is very dangerous to reach it--I've never been so far away from the coast, as well..." Edward was intensely concentrating on steering the hovercraft.

"Hah! But we are still healthy!" Tristan smiled. "Nothing ventured, nothing gained!"

Just then, it happened… As Edward made a sharp turn to steer the hovercraft around the island, a wave crashed from below onto the bottom of the craft and nearly brought it upside down.

"Wahhh!" Tristan screamed, for the first time real fear in his voice, and even Golbez closed his eyes, grabbing the handles at his sides as tight as he could as the surroundings started to turn into the wrong direction. Just after a second the nightmare was gone and the craft settled back into the horizontal. Edward's hands were trembling around the steer. "Is everyone alright?"

"Leah!" Tristan was the first to notice that the seat next to him was empty.

"Damn!" Golbez looked around, hoping that Leah was still around the shallows, but the waves were crashing much too high to see much of anything…

"There--there I can see something--" Tristan pointed towards a point in the foamy water.

"I cannot go there with the craft--the water is too deep there!" Edward informed them.

"And I cannot swim!" Tristan added quickly.

Golbez smiled sourly upon realizing that obviously he was the one expected to play lifeguard, then. "Fine, I'll go. Stop and try to wait here."

"Wait--have you ever learned how to swim?" Edward asked, while Golbez loosened the clasp of his cloak.

The other just shrugged. "I honestly don't know. I guess I'll just have to trust that my old master has instilled that much survival practice in me." With an annoyed sigh, he jumped out of the hovercraft and waded through the hip-high water of the shallow trail they had followed, towards the open, roaring sea.

"I hope he finds her in time..." Edward's face was even paler than usual. "You don't seem worried, Sir Tristan…"

"Oh, I just believe that our Master wizard here is powerful enough to save a girl from drowning… uh oh…" Tristan's voice became high-pitched. "Say, King Edward, can you swim?"

"Not very well…" Edward admitted ashamed, remembering how he nearly had died when Fabul's ship had been attacked by Leviathan. Was there nothing he was good at? However, right now, there was an even greater problem than his chronic inability and he watched the giant masses of water approaching him with horror-widened eyes…

"I think you should hold on to--" Not even Tristan's words were fast enough to escape the wave that buried them… 

Farther away, Golbez had found out that he could swim, though he would have liked to train it in less adverse conditions than high waves, stinging rain getting into his eyes and sharp cliffs all around him… Trying to keep his head out of the water as good as he could, he also had noticed that the Hovercraft was no longer in sight. Instead of panicking, Golbez's fatalistic logic started to work:

"I'll just swim towards the island--maybe Leah has made it there, too…" He honestly hoped so. Just then, he saw something white flashing out to the left of him.

"Leah?" he shouted against the sea, reminding himself that she probably couldn't hear him and with powerful strokes, he tried to reach the point. Just then, an especially high wave threw him aside and he lost orientation for what seemed to him to beseveral minutes. As he had his head out of the sea once more, the salty water hurting his eyes, he suddenly noticed that someone was next to him--he forced his eyes open to catch a glimpse of blue eyes--

"Lea--" He suddenly felt a sharp pain on his head and than there was only black water around him…

"The master wizard Golbez drowned…"

The thought had something amusing to it even as he tumbled into the depths…

xOx

"At last you have arrived. We have been searching for you."

/Who is talking? I cannot see.../

"Open your eyes, Golbez!"

/I cannot… Who are you?/

"You don't want to? Fine, then it makes it all easier for us…"

Wait! /I want… I want to open my eyes…/

"You'll always live in the darkness. Return to your sleep, return to your darkness…"

/No… there are things I have to do before…"

"Open your eyes!"

/Can I?/

"Golbez, please open your eyes!"

"Leah?" Once more, Golbez found himself lying on his back on some hard ground, staring into the face of a person, something wet in his face. This time, though, it was not Tristan who looked down on him, but Leah, and there was no ice, but water which was not only in his face, but in his lungs, as well. Rolling over, he started to cough.

"Hey, are you alright?" Leah carefully touched Golbez's shoulder.

"What happened?" the wizard brought forth.

"I fell out of the craft and since I somehow lost orientation in the water, I decided to swim towards the island. Then, I saw you, but before I could reach you, you hit your head against some stone and you were about to drown. I got hold of you and brought you here..."

Golbez turned around to look at her. Leah was sitting on her knees at his side, dripping wet and shivering.

"She has saved me?" The thought made him feel slightly queasy… The uneasiness grew as he started to wonder about the fate of the others. For once, he hoped that Tristan had lied and could swim, after all… And then there was Edward--it had been a mistake to take the bard with them…

"It is my fault if something happened to him…"

As always when things became too awkward and the guilt too pressing, Golbez's mind produced nothing but destructive mockery and thus he remarked aloud: "Seems you're a pretty good swimmer, Miss Coven… Sadly, I doubt that Edward and Tristan are, too… The hovercraft seems to have disappeared with them…"

"What? That's horrible!" Leah held a hand before her mouth in shock, and dropped her head. "It all seemed to be such an adventure… and now… They are probably dead and we…" Suddenly, tears were running down her cheeks.

Just then, Golbez remembered that this here was no fighter, but at the moment, no matter what her past, just a normal woman for whom landing half drowned on some island was like a bad dream. He couldn’t say that he was pleased about the situation himself, but then again he had seen so much in his life that hardly anything could shock him; or maybe it was just his lack of feeling, again. However, he wondered if he couldn't at least have broken the situation to Leah more gently…

"Listen…" Golbez sat up and tried to keep his mockery at bay this time. "I haven't even thanked you yet for saving me. You're surprisingly good to take care of yourself and others, and we managed to reach the island alive and unhurt. Of course, the chance that someone might rescue us from here is from a logical point of view rather unlikely and--" By Bahamut, there was that irony again. Could he never stop? Leah's tears did not stop, as well, and her upper body sacked into Golbez's direction.

"Maybe drowning would have been the better option after all…" Feeling really uncomfortable by now, but also knowing that he somehow should calm Leah, he carefully patted her shoulder with the hesitance of having to touch burning charcoal. As a result of the clumsy gesture, Leah's head slumped against his shoulder and his hand slid on her back.

Golbez's first reaction was to draw his hand away, but since Leah would have fallen to the side then, he refrained from doing this--also the sensation the woman in his arms invoked was paralyzing his motor activity...

The light pressure of her head against his shoulder, burning hot tears cascading onto the fabric of his clothes… Her hair, smelling salty and refreshing like only the inexplicable smell of ocean air was… For a moment it made him forget the angry red flame in his soul, like the smell had become substantial and had blown it out with a breeze...

The tears were flowing even stronger and hotter now and she leaned closer, clutching lightly the sides of his shirt to keep balance. Even through her icily soaked clothes, her body was emitting warmth and suddenly it was seeping through him as well, spreading from his hand on Leah's back through his arm, his shoulders, his whole body… even through his blood…

"Have I ever felt that warm?" The heat was still growing and now ignited a flicker in his soul once more… It was not a bright angry red flame as before, but toned down; its deep red calming, but exciting at the same time…

It frightened Golbez in the comfort it gave.

He was about to shove Leah carefully away from him, when she rose her head by herself,

causing Golbez's hand to gently glide from her back.

"I'm sorry," she mumbled weakly and swallowed the last of her tears before she faced him, looking embarrassed. "It must seem pathetic for you that I'm sitting here, crying, but all this… Here I am sitting with no memory; two of the three people I just got to know are probably dead and... and… I suddenly asked myself what is the sense in all this? There is nothing but uncertainty in my life… And I just felt… so alone…"

"I fear that I can give you no words of comfort in this matter…" Golbez was still feeling a bit like in a trance and the words left him only slowly--like the flame burning inside of him was dying away. "You see I've always been alone and--"

"This is not true, you have your brother and your fath--"

"This is really neither the place nor the time to talk about such things," he snapped and suddenly his head felt very clear, again.

Leah backed away a bit, her eyes wide with surprise. "I'm sorry, I didn't--"

"Please… forgive me…" Golbez tried calm down, again. His head started to hurt once more; Leah had said that he had hit a rock?

"At first we need to find some cover from the storm… You'll freeze to death in these wet clothes…" He got to his feet and helped Leah up with some effort. Just now he felt how exhausted the unaccustomed swim had left him.

"Shouldn't you worry more about your health? You're the one who nearly drowned…" Smiling once more, Leah reached out to touch one of his long black strands, which were clinging to his black shirt and pale face. Her hand near his face made his skin turn hot, but he wasn't fast enough to back away.

"Just getting some seaweed out of it…" Leah grinned, brushing out some of the black mass with her hands. It was strange, Golbez thought, having his hair getting touched by another person; it nearly seemed bold to him in that moment… But Humans were strange… He had seen often enough how Rosa was straightening Cecil's sleeves or rearranging the crown on his head... It was something that obviously had to do with affection, but in this case--

"The stone must really have hit you hard if you're thinking about such matters…" Though, then again, the hit on his head had not felt like a stone... He glanced at Leah, who was busy trying not to stumble on the rocky surface of the island.

After some time, they found some sort of bigger indentation in the massive mountain structure dominating the island and with the help of some driftwood and several magical spells, Golbez managed to get a fire burning.

His black shirt and trousers had dried rather fast, or at least he no longer noticed the cold, but Leah was still shivering and her white shirt and green trousers clung to her icily.

"I'll turn around if you want, so that you can take off these clothes and dry them…." Golbez offered.

"What? No… I'm fine, really…" Leah clutched her shirt protectively

"What's the matter now?" Back then when she had taken the bath in the sea, Leah hadn't been so modest and she had just disappeared behind a dune to change… And now she suddenly felt awkward? Golbez couldn't understand what problems she had with undressing now in a situation where it was just… required. It was just flesh, wasn't it? Yes, of course even he was aware that she could get called rather pretty, but beauty was just a simple impression that didn't invoke more interest in him than the sight of a functional, well-forged weapon would do.

"I can go for a walk, as well…" he proposed.

"No, really, it'll dry this way, too…" Leah avoided his gaze.

Golbez felt anger rising within--he had thought that she would be tougher and not so prissy. And he really didn’t know what he should do with her if she caught pneumonia. Humans could die of such a thing, couldn't they? He stood up and went over to Leah, trying to convince her of his "honesty".

"If you think that I would try to peep or whatever you call it, I assure you that you don't need to fear. I'm not Tristan and besides--well... I'm not… not…" It was seldom that Golbez was searching for words, but he really had never thought much about the whole subject. "I don't feel like other men! I'm not even a full human!"

Leah looked up at him and broke into a laughter which was not in the least bashful.

"I presume the "full" only correlates to the fact that you are half Lunarian… Or do people on the moon reproduce by snapping their fingers?"

A littler blush coloured Golbez's pale features--not because of the subject, but because he had just realized the stupidity of his words before.

"No, of course not… All I want to say is that you don't have to feel embarrassed. And now I'll go for a walk and then--"

"It… it is not necessary…" Leah said after some hesitation, but still smiling. "If you turn around it is enough." Eager to get out of the cold wet clothes, she started to unbutton her shirt rather fast, even faster than Golbez could turn around fully.

"What's this?"

"What's this?" Leah gasped as Golbez fell down before her with this shout, flinging the upper left part of her shirt aside.

"What is this?" he spoke more slowly now, looking her into the eyes with a dark, earnest gaze.

"I… I..." Leah was still too surprised to even take Golbez's hand away from her shirt. She dropped her gaze to the faint red silhouette near her heart.

"I don't know what it is… It's just a scar and I never paid attention to it… But yesterday you told me about Dawn and the way she died…" her voice faltered.

"But this could be a proof of your identity!" Golbez voice gave out more excitement than he wanted. "Don't you want to get your memory back, Leah? Leah?"

"Stop it!" The woman was facing him once more, a bitter expression on her face as she laid her hand on Golbez's and pushed it away firmly, so that the cloth was covering her heart again.

"Stop confusing me even more… You can't even begin to understand how I feel in this scary chaos of this "Dawn here, Anna there" talk and my own memories! Do you know the real reason why I started to cry on the beach? While you were unconscious, I remembered something, again. I remembered this totally isolate island! Why the hell should Dawn have been here? Why should anyone have been here? Maybe I'm just slowly going mad…" Nearly forceful, she turned her gaze away, a suddenly strangely blank gaze. "Lately, I wonder if I even want to know who I really am or just want to leave it be at… at how I am now… Just start anew…"

"But--"

"No buts!" It came desperate, but strong, strong like the hand that was now gripping Golbez's and her voice speaking to him. "You say that you don't feel like other people, that you cannot feel at all, but when you speak about this Dawn you sound like someone in love! You might not even notice it… But for me, you don't feel anything, right? So I cannot be her, and something is telling you just that…."

Golbez' lips felt dry all of a sudden and Leah's touch seemed to draw away all his strength…. "I'm--I don't know--" It sounded empty...

"You don't know?" Leah slowly raised her head, gripping Golbez's hand even more tightly, bending forward to inspect his eyes, frowning, searching for something, some kind of truth in the dark blue of them… Her breath felt warm, nearly hot against his face and just as he thought that he would burn, there came the water; salty water pearling from her lips and moistening his… Her mouth met his carefully, with gentle pressure, drawing back before her teeth could brush against his involuntary opening lips.

"So, what did you feel?" she asked, breaking the moment abruptly and letting go of his hand.

"She… never kissed me… In fact, I have never been kissed before--" Golbez trailed off, his whole mind completely occupied with understanding the variety of feelings currently filling him--or more with drowning them and giving the blackness in his soul room once more. He tried to be angry, but didn't know why he should be, he tried to feel embarrassed, to feel uncomfortable, but there was something reigning in him right now that left no place for such emotions, something so bright that it nearly made him feel… hurt…

"That's not what I meant. It was my first kiss as well--well as far as my memory goes back which isn't much…" Leah seemed to be unaware of the suffering she had plunged Golbez into. "But this is not about kissing, but about how you felt! If I would be Dawn, I bet you would have felt something… something good…" She was visibly getting impatient with her travel companion's lack of understanding.

"Something good?" Slowly, the emptiness going out from Golbez's soul swallowed the vivid colours that just had filled his being, swallowing the light, the pain…"I… I'm not sure…"

"You don't know this, as well?" Was there only disbelief in her voice or also disappointment?

"Best forget all this. I just wanted--just forget it, okay? I'm sorry if I made you feel… whatever you felt. I'll really dry my clothes now and after that we should break up." She took a deep breath and tried to smile encouragingly. "If Tristan was right we should just be at the island where we wanted to be and maybe he and Edward have made it here, too. Now if this time you would really turn around..."

"No, I'll go for a walk…" Despite the rain, Golbez felt that he needed some air. Before exiting the cave, though, the colour flared up once more inside of him.

"Leah?"

"Yes?" the woman was looking at him curiously.

"So, how did you feel?" Golbez asked with a raised eyebrow.

She hesitated for a moment before answering. "Warm… and secure."

Golbez shook his head. The colours had faded to the grey mass, once more.

"Leah…" He took a deep breath and then, said very lowly, nearly sad: "Despite what I told you before, you should not feel secure in my company. This… this darkness is still in me, and I don't know if I can steer it if it breaks out--or if it can steer me. That's why I want--I must return to the moon. I'm dangerous and you can never trust me…"

"But wasn't it trust you expected from me as you told me to change my clothes?" Leah replied very calmly, regarding him with wide, alert blue eyes.

Golbez shook his head. "That was something else. We're stuck here together and I told you that I have neither reason nor the want to hurt the people who travel with me. But I could hurt you… if... if this fire in me is just triggered enough…" He was not talking about the fiery crimson anger his soul harboured, but about another flame, a new flame that had been ignited already on the beach; a deep red fire that was so much harder to fight than the rage…

He bowed his head, suddenly feeling ashamed for the obvious lack of control he once more had to admit.

"We'll see about that…" Leah said as he left the cave.

For some reason, the tone of her voice made the hairs on Golbez's neck stand up.