Eternal Winds

Warning: Contains mid-game spoilers.

*I don't own Tales of Zestiria or any of it's characters.

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Dezel figured that if some great primordial force assigned a certain amount of luck to everyone in the world, it was not doing him any favors. If life had the opportunity to mess with his plans or expectations, it usually would. He had definitely drawn the short straw.

After realizing it was carrying them along with it's scaly bulk up the grey cliff face, the hellion began to swing and twist madly. Determined to dislodge Dezel and Aris, it jerked back and forth in an effort to loosen the taut line of spirit pendulum that wrapped around it's neck-the length of ethereal line that Dezel was painfully aware of fraying.

Dezel had been expecting the hellion's resistance. It'd be foolishly naive not to, yet his previous plan to use the reckless swings to save their skins was dashed to pieces as a wave of earthen fury rocked the Gorge.

The thundering of the sudden earthquake almost drowned out the equally deafening crash of sheets of stone tumbling into the yawning maw of the chasm below. Yet their cliff held firm, for the time being.

The ground stilled. Just as he was about thank his lucky stars, Dezel heard a sickening sound. The crunch and snap of rock cleaving caused him to look up in time to see cracks etching their way across the sheet of rock the hellion had taken shelter from the tumbling rocks on.

Aris felt Dezel tense. "What? What's the m-" Then she followed his horrified gaze, just as the last vestiges of solid cliff sheared off, plummeting them and the hellion once again.

But Dezel had been ready.

With the wind whistling in one ear and Aris' panicked yell in the other, Dezel struggled concentrate and put a hasty plan into action. Commanding the unruly winds of the Gorge was no easy task in the agitated state they were in. But with a defiant yell, he forced the feisty gales of wind to bend to his will.

Suddenly, a surge of air like a solid cushion stopped their fall, gently depositing a few chunks of cliff, two disoriented wind seraphs, and an outraged hellion on a conveniently close ledge.

But the impressive display of improvisation had taken it's toll. Dezel was exhausted, arms and legs threatening to lock from fatigue. Nevertheless, he jumped to his feet. The battle was far from over.

The hellion recovered with unnerving speed, leaping at Dezel and a still-dazed Aris.

Dezel's finely-tuned instincts took over. Aris was in no condition to fight at the moment, so he would have to move the fight to a more ideal place. He rolled back and sent the pouncing hellion flying toward the ledge and away from his partner with swift kick to the hellion's belly plates.

With Aris out of danger, the fight began in earnest. Dezel dodged, rolled, slashed, and jumped in a savage whirlwind. The hellion was fast, but each of it's attempts to eviscerate Dezel was beat back with a merciless pendulum strike under it's lowered guard.

Dezel had started to believe the fight was beginning to swing in his favor, when the unthinkable happened! His signature bad luck struck again when he jumped back to avoid a swiping razor-sharp claw… only to have the world spin as he slipped on a piece of gravel.

As he fell to the ground, he found his arms and legs pinned under enormously strong pincers. The hellion's rank breath burned his eyes as it reared a bladed claw for a finishing blow with a piercing screech of grim triumph.

Just as Dezel thought it was all over, something strange happened. A horrible tearing sound rang out. Both Dezel and the hellion looked down in surprise to see a silver blade protruding from a gash in it's chest plates. "Who saw that coming?"

Aris Orlin pulled her long dirk back as the surprised hellion sank to the ground inches away from Dezel. She cleaned the hellion slime off the blade and sheathed it, offering Dezel a hand up along with a sideways smile. "It looked like you could use a hand," her smile widened. "And a knife."

He took the hand up, a little shaken from the close shave. "I wouldn't've, had my 'partner' recovered a little faster from her little spill," he muttered. Yet he grinned. "Not bad for a first-timer, huh?"

She scoffed. "Easy there big guy. The thought's nice, but let's not make it a habit of getting into these last-minute saves." She glanced back with a playful light in her eye. "You live a lot longer that way."

She had a point. "Fair enough. But for the record, I saved you not just first, but twice."

"I had a feeling I would regret saving you," she sighed. But edges of her mouth twitched as she resisted the urge to smile. "Not bad at all, partner. But don't get cocky." She punched him lightly on the shoulder. "Hellions should never be underestimated."

She pushed the body of the hellion off the cliff with a booted kick. A lightning bolt similar to the arte Sylph had used, only slightly smaller, crashed silently into the chasm below, vaporizing the grisly hellion remains into a rainbow of colors. At Dezel's bewildered look, she laughed and explained. "Our lightning has purifying power, similar to the Shepherd's, but it's got much more flair, don'tcha think?"

"Whatever." He turned to search for a path to return to the higher levels of the Gorge.

They walked on in silence.

The sun seemed much more comforting and warm with the malevolence purified from the already bleak place. Dezel didn't notice, his mind was occupied with half-hopeful thoughts and nostalgic memories triggered from his split-second sighting of Rose.

Aris noticed his troubled mood. "So," she started slowly. "You recognise someone back there?"

Dezel jarred from his thoughts. The warm emotion he was becoming quickly familiar with seemed to blaze his insides, leaving his mind clouded like a heat haze.

Aris snapped her fingers in his face to reel him back into reality. "Hey? You okay?" She asked concernedly. "You spaced out there for a minute." She chuckled but didn't lose the slightly worried frown.

"I'm fine," he said dismissively. "I saw… an old friend," he explained slowly. "I spotted them from the cliff we were hanging on."

"So you stop whatever you're doing and gawk?" Aris snorted. "When I see an old friend, my first thoughts are 'duck and hide!'"

Dezel sweatdropped. "You should lose those friends."

The wind-swept path seemed longer than Dezel remembered. The sun had slowly started sinking below the high stone walls of Westron Bolt, when they reached an intersection of stone paths. Dezel rounded the wall-like corner… right into a chatting Rose.

Instead of painfully colliding with her, Dezel's immaterial form simply passed through Rose. But out of habit, Dezel swerved to avoid her, falling quite comically hard on his behind for the second time in the day.

Aris was trying desperately not to laugh. "I don't think I've ever seen such a brilliant display of, uh… What's the word? Chivalrous clumsiness?" She covered her growing smile by clapping slowly.

Dezel was too busy quashing the impulse to call out to Rose again to let his annoyance show. At Aris' puzzled look he gestures half-heartedly and explained. "Aris, these are my…" He struggled to find the right word, finally deciding on "friends."

He got up and went about making one-sided introductions. "That's Sorey, Lailah, and Zaveid. The water-seraph's Mikleo and the one poking him with umbrella is Edna." His voice almost caught when he came to the last companion. "And this is Rose."

She continued to talk as if she hadn't noticed them (of course she couldn't.) "... what was up with the earthquake and weird flames and stuff?" 'Not to mention the picture that looked an awful lot like Dezel,' she thought, oblivious as Aris stood in front of her for a closer look.

"Not a bad-lookin' bunch," she mused.

Dezel didn't respond. He was too busy taking Rose's face, smiling and radiant as Edna and Mikleo's antics brought rounds of laughter to the group. 'Spirits, that smile… had she always smiled like that?' He'd seen her smile probably a million times before, but he'd never noticed the beauty and honest charm that had been right in front of him all those years. Revenge had always taken priority, but now Dezel was at a loss on how to deal with the full force of suppressed emotion, a combination of long-time regard and a tangle of newer feelings.

By now Dezel had an idea to what these emotions entailed, though not how he had acquired them, or why just the thought of Rose caused the sudden flare of them. He thought back to something Lafarga had said back in Pendrago. 'Hell, it's practically under your nose…"

"But seriously," Rose rephrased her question. "Obviously the earthquake and flames and weird pictures are connected. The question is how?"

"Not to mention the bigger question of why?" Sorey nodded in agreement. "Lailah, do you anything about the chamber? Or the ruins in general?"

The Prime Lord looked genuinely perplexed. "I recall the ruins being there as long as I remember, but…" Her brow furrowed. "I've never set foot in them before in all my journeys with the Shepherd."

Aris' ears perked up. "Did you say her name was Lailah?" She looked over the fire-seraph once more.

Dezel nodded.

"As in, 'Lady of the Lake' Lailah? The 'Seraph of the Sacred Blade'? THAT Lailah?!" she nearly squealed.

Dezel wasn't sure of just what was happening in front of him. He nodded slowly again. "Why? You know her or something?"

But Aris had started talking to herself, a strange light in her eyes as she reexamined the group. "But that means he's the… and you all are… and you're fighting…"

Dezel sighed wearily. "Yes he's Shepherd, and we're his entourage. Is that such a big deal?"

She snapped her head back to him. "Big deal?! It is a tremendous honor just meet the Shepherd of the Age. And you get to travel and fight beside him and Lady Lailah?!" Her eyes filled with awe. "You must be the luckiest seraph alive-erm… you know… in existence?"

Dezel chuckled mirthlessly. "I don't think so. Now, do you have any idea what they're talking about? Aris?"

She had been looking at Rose, and the way the edges of Dezel's mouth would lift ever-so slightly, bending into an almost visible smile at the sight of the young woman.

"That was quite a quake," she recalled absently, still trying to discern the relationship between Dezel and the grinning beauty in front of her. Then she recalled what had been said before, and a dreadful thought struck her. "Pictures and Flames… Spirits! That can't be!" She broke into a sprint down the path Sorey and the others had just come from.

"Aris! What's wrong?" Dezel called after her and ran to catch up.

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Excitement was an emotion Rose was quite familiar with, as well as dread.

But never had she felt them mixed together before. Now, the two blended into a bittersweet impulse to either give into the hope that a certain wind seraph was still around, or break down in tears of painful grief at the possibility that her friend was truly gone.

But Rose was also a seasoned businesswoman at heart, and quashed both impulses and maintained her carefree smile as the party checked into the Pendrago Inn.

After the strange afternoon, the group had unanimously voted to rest and regroup back at the inn.

Rose sighed and pushed open the door to her room.

With the party's frequent stops at the fine establishment, the innkeeper (another seasoned businessman) had seen fit to build and reserve private rooms for the Shepherd and his companions.

Rose closed the finely-carved oaken door and threw herself on the voluminous bed, grateful that the wisely-spent gald and friendly talks with the innkeeper over Drago stew had finally paid off, the lining of her sleeping bag had started to feel harder than the rocky ground the party had often been forced to sleep on.

As much as her body yearned for rest, her mind refused to shut down. A vortex of hopeful "what-if's" swirled around in her mind. Maybe his wounds were not so grievous, maybe the stubborn seraph held on with sheer will to keep him alive. Maybe…

Rose shook her head. With every thought, reality seemed to suck the warmth from the small spark of hope she had struggled to shelter in the back of her mind. Yet it still burned faintly, giving Rose new faith in her feeling that everything would work out.

'Maybe Lailah knows more than she let on. It wouldn't be the first time. Maybe…' her thoughts broke with a sudden yawn. 'I'll ask her in the morning,' she decided and rubbed an eye sleepily.

She blew out the lone candle lighting up the room and buried herself in the cool silk sheets of the bed. Spirits, she needed sleep.

And Rose closed her eyes, the image of Dezel on the mural still emblazoned in her mind.

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Author's Note: Hey guys! I'm not dead! Unfortunately the same can't be said for my computer. The reason this update took awhile is because my poor Gateway Laptop decided it was time to quit and so all my writing, back-ups, and back-up back-ups were all deleted. In fact I'm typing this on a borrowed laptop so please don't give up on the story. I promise to update more frequently. Remember to hit those fav/follow buttons and leave a review if you want or pm me. Thanks!

-FonicEdge21