(A Legend Of Legaia fan fiction, by Vick330)
Disclaimer
I don't own Legend Of Legaia, or its characters. I don't even know why I bother stating the obvious.
Foreword
This is a sequel to my first L.O.L. story, but you don't need to read it first to enjoy this fic. It takes place about one year after the ending of 'If Life Allows', and little over seven years after the game's ending. The story is mainly about Nara, Vahn and Noa's daughter, and her best friend Thoram, Mei's son.
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I - The Explorers
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West of Rim Elm there is a mountain range. When the Bio-Castle took over the village, part of it reached to the mountain's feet. Today, nearly seven years after its destruction, a series of pits remain there as a grim reminder of those dark times.
Those gaps have been condemned by order of the King, and following High Knight Vahn's counsel. The area is patrolled by the Kingdom's Soldiers, so nothing short of an army of determined warrior-diggers, equipped with sturdy tools, could gain access to the tunnels that are to be found there.
Of course, if you just happen to be short, very spirited, overly curious and stubborn, even a detachment of Biron Monks wouldn't keep you from trespassing. Thoram was already regretting having taken part in the expedition, wondering why he had let himself be talked into it. The fact was it was because Nara had a way to make all of her ideas, even the really bad ones, sound good.
"Nara, you said that we would only get near the pits then go back, and it's getting late." Said the brown-eyed boy to his perky friend.
"Awwww! Where's your sense of adventure? We got pass the guards, didn't we? And we made it this far, so why not take a little peek?" Answered the red-haired girl. She was a smaller version of Noa, and had inherited her mother's spirit and sense of wonder.
The boy sighed, "Because, let me think...Ah, yes! It's going to get us in trouble, big time?"
"Well, go back if you want, I'm not leaving before I see those pits."
"I don't think that this is such a good idea, Nara."
"Come on, trust me on this one! It's going to be great!" She said with one of her wide smiles that threatened to split her head in two, and was usually an omen of disaster to come.
Thoram wasn't convinced this time around though, "The last time you said that, we got grounded for a week for climbing the roof of the Elder's house."
"That was just a slight miscalculation, and how was I supposed to know that Mount Rikorua was so slippery?"
"And of course, it wasn't your fault that we landed on the Elder's tea party."
"Who has tea parties in this time and age anyway? And why did he invite the Elders from the surrounding villages? Don't they have their own villages to take care off?" The girl's logic was quite flawless, in her mind anyway.
"Well at least his cat was all right, I still wonder how it got on the roof in the first place." He mused aloud.
"Huh, about that, I threw bits of food on the roof, to get the Elder's cat to go there." Confessed Nara.
"WHAT?" Exclaimed Thoram, "Why would you do such a thing?"
"Well, I wanted to re-enact my Mommy and Daddy's first meeting, when they fought that winged lion thing."
The boy rolled his eyes, as understanding suddenly dawned on him, "So the roof was Mount Rikorua, you were your Mom, I was your Dad, and the cat was Caruban. Am I right?"
"YUP!" Chirped the girl merrily.
His tone was bitter when he replied, "I should have known that it was another of your crazy ideas, they all are."
Nara put her hands on her hips, and faced her companion, "Come on, Thoram, you don't mean that. You know very well that all of my ideas are good!"
"Yes, I do mean it!" replied the boy, "And not all of your ideas are good, most of them stink, and I'm just too darn stupid to realize it on time."
The girl was unruffled, "Well then, name one of my ideas that was bad!"
Once again, he rolled his eyes, "What about the time you convinced me to build a raft, and then put it in the water and we almost drowned?"
"Just a little engineering problem, and what is an isolate incident after all?"
"And there was that time when we got chased by bees..."
"It didn't sting that much..."
"And when you almost started a fire in my house..."
"Your father put it out on time, didn't he?"
"And that time when my head got stuck in your house's fence..."
"It's not my fault if you have a big head."
"And that time when..."
"All right, all right, I get the picture, but this time it's different, trust me." She concluded with a huge grin, which usually won the boy over to her cause.
But this time it didn't, and he firmly stated, "That's what you say EVERY time something bad is about to happen, so I insist that we go back now."
"Ah! And who's going to make me? Huh?"
Even if the girl was between easy reach of his arms, Thoram knew that he had no chance of grabbing her. Nara was incredibly fast and moved like quicksilver, so a direct approach was bound to fail. And thus he decided to use deception.
He looked up and exclaimed, "OOOOOOOH!"
Curious, Nara also looked up, "What?"
"GOTCHA!" He yelled victoriously.
"YIKES!" Exclaimed the startled girl, and then Thoram threw her over his shoulder and held her in an inescapable hug.
"Thoram! Put me down!" Complained the girl, her green eyes burning with fury.
"No way, we're going back now, you'll thank me for this some day." He replied proudly.
"LET ME GO! NOW!" She ordered, kicking and trying to pull free, but he was wearing his leather jacket that didn't allow her to slip from his grasp.
"Enjoy the ride, you usually pester me to carry you." He said, laughing and not overly bothered by her kicks.
"IF YOU DON'T LET ME GO, I'LL PUT SPIDERS IN YOUR BED! AND BUGS IN YOUR FOOD!"
Thoram chuckled, "I'm not afraid of spiders, and my parents don't allow you in the kitchen anymore since the fire incident."
"PUT ME DOWN, OR I'LL TELL EVERYONE THAT YOU LIKE MY AUNTY NENE!"
That gave him pause, but he decided that it was worth the risk, "I think she knows already anyway."
"IF YOU DON'T RELEASE ME, I'LL BURN YOUR HOUSE DOWN WHILE YOU'RE SLEEPING AND THEN YOU'LL RUN OUT IN YOUR JAMMIES AND THE WHOLE VILLAGE WILL LAUGH AT YOU!"
"You're not allowed to play with fire, remember?" He informed his enraged friend.
Realizing that coercion would not work, Nara decided to use trickery. She tried to remember the conversations between Nene and the region's healer, in order to come up with some alarming injuries.
"Ooooow!" She cried.
"Nara? Are you all right?" Asked a concerned Thoram.
She responded in a weak voice, "I think my ribs are broken, my lungs collapsed, and my prostate is swollen."
That sounded quite serious, and the boy released her very carefully, "Oh, Nara, I'm sorry, I'm so, so sorry, can you stand? No, maybe it's better if I carry you to your aunt Nene, I'm really, really sorr..."
"SUCKEEEEEEEEEEEEEER!"
"Eh! Come back here! You're not hurt!" He exclaimed, as he ran after her.
The girl was fast like the wind and she saw, with great satisfaction, that her companion was following. She adjusted her speed so he wouldn't be left too far behind. Thoram knew he had no chance to catch up, as Nara was only second to her mother when it came to racing.
Nara skillfully jumped over and swerved around obstacles, reveling in the feeling of freedom that speed always gave her. She also felt pride at having outwitted Thoram, once again, and it gave her a happy feeling of accomplishment.
She finally reached the object of her interest and waited for the boy on a boulder. He arrived shortly and out of breath, whereas she on the other hand had hardly broken a sweat.
"So, we're here! Lets explore!" She announced happily.
Deciding that there was no harm in looking around, since brick and mortar closed the pits, Thoram followed the red-haired girl. But she soon disappeared between a group of boulders, and he decided to rest a little while she satisfied her curiosity. He knew that his spirited friend would soon tire of the whole thing anyway, as her attention span was notoriously short.
"THORAM! HEEEEEeeeellllp!" Came Nara's cry of alarm.
He immediately jumped over the boulders, ready to fight whatever was endangering the girl. He could see no trace of her and he could see little in the deepening shadows. Concern made him careless, otherwise he would have seen the hole in the ground.
"Nara, if this is a joke, it's not funny...AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
He landed on a giving surface, which had the consistency of dry leather and that cracked under his weight, braking his fall. A slender hand helped him up, and he looked into two big gray-green eyes. The girl seemed unharmed fortunately, and he was more surprised than hurt himself anyway.
"Are you all right, Thoram?" Inquired Nara.
"Yes, I think so, but what is this place?" He asked.
"I think that we are inside what was the Bio-Castle, and we were lucky to land on that dead thing." She offered.
The boy's brown eyes widened at the sight. Moving slowly, he held Nara's hand while he backed away from the said thing. It was all that remained of a Gilium that had been killed by the castle's destruction and mummified in the dry air.
He looked up and saw that the hole from which they had fallen. It wasn't that far away but certainly out of reach, way too high for them to jump and with no place to climb. He remembered the earthquake that had shaken the region two years before and was probably the cause of that aperture. It was just their luck to have stumbled on it, he thought bitterly.
"I thought that all the pits had been closed." Said Nara.
"That is not a pit so we're not even in a tunnel, how are we going to get out?" Wondered the boy.
Always the optimist, the girl announced, "No problem! We'll just find a passage that leads upwards."
Thoram sighed, "And pray tell, how are we going to get past brick and mortar?"
"We'll see when we get there, and anyway the pits were closed so nobody can get IN not OUT. You see, you worry too much." She concluded with certainty.
The big boy thought that he worried just the right amount, but said nothing and followed the girl towards an exit from the chamber they were in. Surprisingly, they were able to see quite well and they realized that the walls, ceiling, and floor gave a faint greenish illumination. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Thoram remembered a lecture by the elder about 'cold light' produced by certain funguses.
They walked for a long time but couldn't find a promising path. Nara paused and pondered, "Maybe we should go back and try to find another passageway."
"Huh? Nara?" Said Thoram, as he looked back the way they had just come.
"What?" She said and then froze.
Behind them there were two tunnels and her keen eyes allowed her to see that, a little farther, both tunnels branched too. It would be impossible to go back to their starting point, for they had not noticed the forking while they walked.
"What now?" Inquired the boy.
For once in her short life Nara was at a loss, unable to decide on a course of action. Tired, hungry, thirsty and quite deflated, she let herself fall against the tunnel's wall.
Thoram sat beside her and proceeded to empty his ample coat's pockets. He produced a bottle with water, and also dried meat and cheese packed in leaves, followed by a length of rope and a small knife. "We better go easy on our supplies," he said gravely, "We don't know how long we'll be trapped here."
"How come you brought all this?" Asked the girl, gratefully accepting what her friend put in her hands.
"Since we drifted on that raft, I always bring some food and water when I'm with you, just in case." He stated in a resigned tone of voice.
After eating some of the supplies, wisely saving some for later, Thoram shared some candy with her. Realizing that Nara was shivering, he took off his coat and put it around her shoulders.
"What about you, you're not cold?" She inquired with concern.
"Don't worry, I'm all right," he reassured her, "Try to sleep now, we'll need all our strength to get out of here."
"I'm sorry." She said.
"Why, Nara?"
"Because this was an awful idea, maybe you're right and all my ideas are bad."
"Well, actually many of your ideas are good. Like, remember the time you got my sister Candela and me to lay on the grass, and look at shapes in the clouds?"
The girl felt reassured at the memory, "Yeah, that was kind of neat."
The boy continued, "Or when I was sick, and you brought little pieces of wood for me to carve, and you stayed and played with me."
Nara laughed, "Yup! I saved the little figurines you made, you know, they were so cute!"
She then leaned on him and promptly fell asleep. In spite of his size and strength Thoram was still a child, and he was scared and felt like crying. Looking at Nara, he decided to follow her example and be brave. For she was always brave and never shed tears. So he wiped the wetness from his eyes, and after a while slumber claimed him too.
The girl woke up at some point and wept softly, bitterly regretting having dragged her best friend into such a mess. She missed not being safely tucked in her own bed, and not having kissed her little sister Lyra good night. Thinking that at least she was safe back at home, and also glad that Candela had not come with them, she felt comforted and fell asleep again.
Farther, much farther down the corridor the two youngsters were in, something stirred. It had been dormant for more than seven years, and now it felt a draft of fresh air and the faint smell of flesh. The smell of young, healthy, tender human flesh.
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End chapter 01