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The first low rumble of thunder, far off in the distance, barely reached her over the sound of the group talking. Though, frankly, complaining was probably a better term to describe their conversation.
The wind was beginning to pick up and what had started as a slight drizzle was becoming more violent as minutes ticked by. Suddenly, no one wanted to own up to the bright idea of setting out on foot that morning for the sake of “some good exercise” and the fact that the rheairds had been left at Zelos’.
If there were any doubts in anyone’s mind that the skies were about to split apart and drench everything in sight, they were promptly cut off by a flash of lightning so bright that it left the world feeling momentarily blinded.
The accompanying clap sent rumbles through the ground so strong that they stopped Raine’s feet mid-step, and caused her breath to hitch painfully in her throat. Oh, no…
Vaguely she could hear Lloyd calling for a change of plans. They would stop at the closest inn or House of Guidance instead of heading all the way back to Meltokio in hopes of getting out of the impending storm sooner.
With new determination, the party pushed on, calling to each other to hurry up and squealing in surprise when particularly cold droplets slid down the backs of their shirts, giving them the shivers.
The metallic scent of rain mixed with the frigid sting of moisture, pelting her in a seemingly never-ending attack that made her inhale too sharply, her lungs already tightening.
Not here, not now. Come on, self, keep moving.
She forced her boots forward, but the ground was quickly softening and turning slick, making each step feel much heavier than the last. What she wouldn’t give in exchange for stillness and the opportunity to take a good breath, dammit. She would do anything to be rid of the feeling of the pressure in the air and the thunder vibrating through her bones.
Glancing up from her trembling legs, she caught sight of her teammates hunched over, bracing against the strong winds as they continued to charge through the sludge as quickly as they could. Before she could even think to call out to them, lightning flashed once more– too close for her own good.
Immediately, she was teleported back to that night, twelve years ago. Water closed over her head, the world turned cold and dark, her lungs were burning as she thrashed and screamed, reaching out for help, begging to be saved–
Her legs faltered.
“No, no, no…” The words tumbled out under her breath, a broken mantra for no one but herself. Her hands began to shake uselessly at her sides. She curled them into fists, nails biting her palms, but even that wasn’t enough to snap her out of the memory that had consumed her.
Another clap of thunder.
Her breath turned shallow as her vision blurred at the edges. Her heartbeat surged into her throat as she tried to get back to her feet, but her body just wouldn’t obey no matter how much she willed it into submission.
Cold sheets of rain hammered the earth, soaking through her jacket, her hair, her belongings. The mud grabbed at her pant legs, clinging to them like a second layer and refusing to let her get up.
Her whole body trembled as she reached out blindly in the direction she last remembered seeing her teammates, “Please… Not again…”
They were nothing more than specs on the horizon now, too far to hear her quiet pleas. Her odds of being saved by a fictitious Goddess were suddenly much higher than those of receiving aid from her party members.
A dull roar filled her ears as the rain began to hit even harder. Panic swelled so strongly that she felt sick from it, and the next thing she knew, the world was tilting sideways, her vision shrinking to nothing more than a pinprick of grey.
The sky flashed again and she flinched violently, curling inward and shoulders shaking, as she felt the earth consuming her.
“Help me…” she cried, her voice barely human now. “Don’t leave me here.”
Her breath, fragmented, refused to deepen, and her strength finally gave out, the tempest swallowing her whole.
The storm had driven most travelers off the road, but not everyone sought shelter. Bandits, looters, and only the most fearless of dishonest adventurers found this the ideal time to seek out their next targets.
“Oi! Look at that!” A tall man pointed animatedly, guiding his travel troupe of three toward an unmoving figure just beyond the line of the trees.
The woman lay half-submerged in a puddle of mud, her pale hair plastered to her face and her clothing soaked through. She didn’t stir when they approached, nor did she so much as bat an eye.
“Dead?” Another asked, nudging her lightly with the toe of his boot. “Maybe we’ll get some fresh roadkill for once.”
The first man crouched, placing two fingers to the woman’s damp neck. “Nah, she’s breathin’. Passed out, maybe.”
“Aw, shucks.”
A grin crept into the third bandit’s voice as he got closer, “Pretty little thing, ain’t she?”
A look of understanding passed through the group, and that was the only confirmation they needed to descend on their prey.
The tallest rolled her onto her back, her limp body barely resisting the movement. Her orange jacket partially slid off her shoulders with the movement, and the guy’s buddy wasted no time in yanking it off the rest of the way and tossing it aside.
“Check her bag,” the leader ordered.
The youngest dug into the discarded backpack, muttering as he pulled out countless vials and herbs. Gels and a heavily stocked pencil case came next, followed by an encyclopedia, waterlogged notebooks and loose scribble-filled pages.
“Worthless,” he spat, as the contents of the woman’s bag turned to nothing more than sludge. “Where do you keep your damn money?”
But the other two weren’t interested in the Gald at all. One man pushed the limp figure’s shirt up, exposing the curve of her waist and her skin streaked with mud and dirt, as the other fumbled with the fastenings of her trousers, his hands eager and breath heavy.
“I wonder who this little kitten belongs to,” the tall leader joked, brushing wet hair from her face. “No one around for miles.”
“Let’s warm her up, boss,” his partner said, starting to lower himself over her.
Thunder cracked overhead, but the woman didn’t react. Her body remained motionless as hands roamed and tugged, preparing her for what was to come.
The bandit unfastening her pants leaned in closer, his grimy face mere inches from hers, “That’s it, sweetheart. Just relax for me and this won’t hurt one bit.”
Another crack of thunder shook the world and the youngest of the trio’s head snapped up, suddenly disinterested by the bag in his hands. “…Did you hear that?”
“Yeah, there’s a storm going on, dumbass,” his leader replied as his hands began to fondle the woman’s ample chest.
“No, not that. I swear I heard someone.”
“Just your imagina–”
“– fessor! Professor!”
A young man’s voice carried down the road over the wind, raw with fear.
“Or not. Shit, this means someone’s coming.”
A second voice chimed in with the first, louder and somehow more furious. “Raine! Raine, where are you?!”
The men around her exchanged looks of panic and something akin to guilt but not nearly enough of it.
“Grab what you can,” one hissed. “Leave the rest.”
But they were already too late.
Lloyd burst out of the curtain of rain like something thrown by the storm itself, mud splashing up around his boots as he skidded to a stop, eyes wide, breathless, and soaked to the bone.
Then he saw her… and the sound he made wasn’t a shout– it was a wounded animal’s cry. “Professor Sage!”
Zelos stumbled up behind him a second later, chest heaving, red hair plastered to his face. He followed Lloyd’s stare and froze, every line of his body going rigid, “… Oh, Goddess.”
The offenders backed off instinctively at the sight of the two more muscular, better armed men that had just arrived on the scene.
“You,” Zelos growled, his voice low and shaking with rage. His expression had turned from shock to murder in less than a heartbeat. “What the hell did you do?”
Lloyd didn’t wait for an answer before charging in, swords drawn.
The men scattered, scrambling over each other to flee into the forestry as they were pursued. Zelos lunged after the nearest one, grabbing the back of his cloak and slamming him into the ground with a violence none of them had been prepared for.
A quick slash of a sword was all it took to silence the bandit’s screams, his head sliding off with a wet slop. One down, two to go.
Zelos turned back to the unconscious half-elf, quickly dropping to his knees by her side as he patted her cheeks in hopes of waking her. Lloyd could handle the other two men on his own, that much he was certain about. “Raine…? Hey, c’mon, hunny. I’m here. Look at me, please.”
She didn’t open her eyes.
He reached out with shaking hands to fix her shirt, pulling it down gently, trying to cover her without moving her too much. Her skin was cold and bruised under his touch, and he bit back a string of curses.
“... You’re freezing,” he whispered. “We’ve gotta get you outta here soon. I don’t want you catching a cold.”
Had she been awake, she certainly would have chided him for that comment, correcting him with a firm slap to the back of the head. ‘You can’t get sick from being out in the cold!’
“I’m so sorry, Raine. I don’t know how this happened, but I’m so sorry that it did.”
Lloyd dropped to his knees beside him suddenly, panting like he’d just run a marathon. “They tried to get away, but I got ‘em. How’s she doing?”
“She still hasn’t woken up. Keep trying while I pick up her stuff.”
Most of the contents of her pack were scattered across the ground, each item in a greater state of ruin than the last. The party’s healing items were beyond salvaging, gels squashed and life bottles shattered. Her clothing was strewn everywhere, nearly as filthy as what she currently wore. Pages from her notebooks were torn and half-melted into the ground. The Monster Manual that Raine kept track of so preciously had practically turned into a monster of its own, and their travel journal looked more like a puddle than a diary at all.
Zelos picked up what little he could, wiping the dirt away to the best of his ability. “We’ll fix this later,” he murmured. He wasn’t sure if he was convincing Raine with that empty promise, or himself.
A paper caught his eye then, lying face-down, partially buried in the muck. He picked it up carefully, fully expecting it to be one of her failed recipes, and pouted as the thin, old paper nearly crumbled under his touch, soaked through and through.
The image on the reverse side, he found, was ruined– colours swollen and smeared beyond recognition, faces dissolving into waterlogged streaks. But he could still make out the slightest hint of shapes: a woman’s silhouette, a man’s arms around two small children. One with long, pale hair, the other just a newborn baby.
He froze as the realization hit him, tears accumulating in the corners of his eyes.
He couldn’t even begin to imagine how important that picture must have been for her to carry it around everywhere she went, protecting it so dearly through all her adolescence and early adulthood. It was completely ruined now, just like the rest of her measly belongings, and somehow that hurt him more than he thought possible.
“Zel, I’m gonna head back first to let the others know we found her, ‘kay? You gonna be okay to get her back on your own?”
The redhead waved the younger man off as he finished packing up Raine’s bag and slung it over his shoulders. Of course he would be fine alone with her. Hell, he kind of preferred it this way because it meant he’d be able to talk to her, undisturbed, and hopefully coax her awake.
He slipped his arms under her gently, and lifted her with little strain. She weighed next to nothing, and he couldn’t help but immediately be worried by that fact.
Mud and debris clung to her clothing and her skin, but he deftly ignored it all, cradling her against his chest as if she might break with too much pressure. Her head lolled against his shoulder, droplets running down her cheeks like tears.
“Raine?” He asked, breathily. “Can you hear me?”
Her eyelids fluttered, though just barely. Wildly unfocused, her grey irises landed on him and lingered for only the space of a heartbeat, “Z-Zelos…?”
Her voice was a whisper of a whisper, and he almost dropped to his knees in relief at the simple fact that she had responded at all. “Yeah, I’m here. I’ve got you, and you’re safe now, okay? Just rest a little and I’ll get you out of the rain.”
Her eyes had closed again before he finished speaking, her body going limp against him. Her brow was knit tight with no sign of relaxing any time soon, and her look of distress was all the convincing he needed to take off on a determined run back to the House of Guidance they’d decided to stop at earlier.
The traveller’s stop was a burst of warm light in the middle of the storm, its lanterns flickering against the rain. Zelos pushed the door open with his shoulder, Raine safely cradled in his arms, her soaked hair trailing water onto the floor.
The innkeeper’s face drained of colour at the sight of the pair. “Good heavens! Is she—?”
“She’s alive,” Zelos said, voice tight. He turned briefly toward his travel group who were huddled together in the lobby, having been reunited by Lloyd. “Did you guys get a room yet?” They shook their heads and he turned back toward the receptionist, “We’ll need the biggest one you’ve got then.”
She didn’t hesitate. “You can take the large traveler’s suite on the second floor. I’ll send up towels and blankets, as many as you need.”
Frantically, the woman waved at the nearby staff who scattered at once, one sprinting upstairs, another rushing to the linen cupboard, a third calling out to their other colleagues to lend a hand.
Zelos didn’t wait to settle the payment and instead carried Raine up the stairs, taking them two at a time while the others followed more slowly behind, silent and exhausted.
The suite door was already open for them, a fire burning in the hearth. Talk about quick service. The heat was welcome, but Raine didn’t react to it in the slightest. She hung limp in Zelos’ arms, cold as river stone.
“You should get her to bed,” Regal said quietly.
Zelos resisted rolling his eyes at the suggestion. As if he hadn’t already thought of that himself.
He placed her upon the white duvet, which was immediately stained by the filth that clung to her. She looked even smaller now somehow, with her drenched, oversized clothes clinging to her thin frame. Her hair was a tangled, rain-matted mess that stuck to her skin, and her lips had turned an eerie shade of almost-blue.
For a long moment, no one moved, unsure of what to say or do. Even Genis was uncharacteristically quiet as he watched his sister from across the room, wringing his hands anxiously. He wanted to help, that much was apparent, but his brain had gone blank. Had the roles been reversed, what would she have done to help him?
The redheaded Chosen, with a jaw clenched tight enough to ache, got to work on peeling off Raine’s sodden clothing that hung onto her like its life depended on it. The job had already been partially started by the men who’d tried to violate her earlier, which only made doing it feel so much worse.
Presea was quick to provide some dry towels to wrap the healer in as soon as the woman had been divested of her underthings, making sure no one in the room could catch a glance of her in a state of undress.
Blankets were soon tucked over those linens, building a cocoon of warmth around Raine’s cold, still form.
Minutes ticked by, the party anxiously hoping for some sign of awaking, when Sheena spoke up. “Should we maybe call for a doctor? She’s really not looking good at all.”
Had Raine been in any way able to respond, she would have certainly let her displeasure with the idea be known. A doctor was out of the question. She was more capable of taking care of herself than any medical “professional” could have claimed to.
“I think we should see how she is in the morning,” Colette piped up, hugging Genis tightly with a towel to warm him.
Heads nodded in agreement, and the matter was settled.
A silence settled over the party as they began to get themselves dried off and dressed in fresh clothes. Someone gently suggested heading down to the kitchen for a warm meal, and one by one they filed out the door, leaving Zelos alone with the slumbering half-elf once more.
Gently, he brushed a stray lock of hair from across her face, his fingertips gently trailing across her soft skin in the process. “Raine? The others are gone, it’s just us now. Please, wake up.”
Minutes trickled by without any reaction from the woman and he couldn’t help but begin to wonder if maybe they should have taken Sheena’s suggestion and called for help after all.
Raine couldn’t be sure of how much time had passed when she finally blinked open her tired eyes.
She could make out the sound of familiar voices quietly chatting, the crackling of a warm fire, and the heavy breathing of someone slumbering near her, slightly too close for comfort. There was no more breeze, and she was no longer being pelted by rain, so she could only assume that she’d made it back to her team safe and sound.
Now if only she could remember how she’d pulled that off.
Grumbling uncomfortably, she tried to adjust her position. Why was she so sore? … And why was she undressed?! That fact alone was enough to force her upright, pulling the blankets tightly against herself in her sudden panic.
Instantly her travel team was by her side, and Zelos was awoken by her sudden movement.
“Professor!” Lloyd exclaimed as he dropped to his knees at the bedside. “You’re awake– thank Martel! Are you okay? Are you hurt? How can we help?”
She couldn’t help but flinch at the volume of his voice and she was thankful for Regal immediately shushing the teen. Sometimes the swordsman’s boisterous energy was just too much to handle.
“Wh-Where are we? What’s going on?” She blinked sluggishly, her gaze drifting from face to face– Regal, Lloyd, Zelos, Sheena, Presea, Colette before finally landing on…
Genis.
Her poor little brother who could do nothing more than shift his weight with worry as he held back pitiful tears of fear.
Raine outstretched an arm toward him and, with little to no hesitation, he was crawling onto the bed, his face buried in the crook of her shoulder.
“Sis,” he cried. “I was worried sick about you. Y-You were gone and everyone was scared out of their minds, and we-we didn’t know where you were or if something had happened to you.”
“Go easy on her,” Zelos cautioned as he moved away to give the siblings some space. “She’s still recovering.”
She shooed him away with a shake of her head and held her brother just a bit tighter in her arms. Rare had become the times where he showed affection toward her, and if he wanted some now, she wasn’t about to complain, no matter how badly she wanted to lay back down and rest some more.
She couldn’t shake the feeling however that there was something she wasn’t remembering, that a few hours were missing from her memory. Running her hand through her brother’s long hair, she mentally braced herself for the possible responses to her impending question. “I caused a great deal of trouble, didn’t I?”
Their collective shouts of “No, of course not!” set her teeth on edge, and she winced at the immediate throbbing that ignited in her head. She almost regretted asking.
“This was our fault, Professor!” Colette was continuing, speaking on behalf of all the team. “We should’ve noticed you weren’t with us!”
Well, that she wouldn’t refute. Had she been more lucid, she might have mustered up the courage to say something about how she felt about the whole situation. For the time being, she would keep it to herself… and her personal journal.
“I can’t seem to recall what happened though. I remember the storm, and then everything is blank for a long while. What happened during that time?”
She watched as the others exchanged a quick look before Zelos quickly responded. “You don’t need to remember anything right now. All that matters is that you’re with us and that you’re safe.”
“And that you get some rest,” Sheena added. “C’mon, Genis, let your sister go back to sleep. She’ll still be here in the morning.”
What, was she not old enough to decide for herself when she needed to sleep? Then again, with how foggy her brain was, perhaps it was a good idea to listen to the more sensible members of her team.
As if on cue, her younger sibling peeled himself from her hold, and Presea made her way over to tuck her back into bed properly in an act that was slightly too motherly for her liking.
Through droopy eyelids she watched Zelos crawl back into the space beside her, propped up on one elbow as he smiled tenderly at her. Her pessimistic side couldn’t resist thinking that it was a little ironic that it had taken another abandonment for her to receive this kind of warmth and care from those closest to her, but she forced the thought out of her mind as quickly as it had come.
“I’m really sorry for everything,” she mumbled sleepily.
She was out before she could hear the response.
The storm had fully passed by sunrise, leaving the inn washed in pale gold light. The room was quiet, the team still slumbering peacefully– Lloyd and Genis asleep in one bed, Colette alone in another, Sheena curled in an armchair, Regal and Presea sitting upright against the wall like sentinels.
Zelos hadn’t moved from Raine’s side. She couldn’t say that she was surprised by that… nor that she disliked it. It was kind of nice to have someone worried about her for once.
Sitting up slowly, she felt the weight of sleep gently lifting this time instead of the violence from last night. A quick self-assessment revealed no injuries, but she was definitely stiff and uncomfortable. Nothing a good coffee couldn’t fix.
Glancing around, she spotted her possessions spread out on the floor by the fireplace. Her bag, the team’s remaining healing items, her notebooks, her clothing– it had all been left out to dry for the night. Exactly what she needed.
Holding her makeshift towel-dress tightly around herself, she tiptoed to the pile and dressed in the driest option available to her. Perhaps it wasn’t the most stylish outfit, but she wasn’t about to go strut a catwalk anyway.
Basking in the last embers of the fading fire, she began methodically packing away her things, pouting as she took mental note of everything that had to be replaced at the nearest item shop. It would cost a fortune and, considering she couldn’t seem to locate her wallet which held the entirety of the team’s funds, it was also going to take forever to save up enough.
Shaking her head in displeasure, Raine stuffed her ruined, crinkled notebooks in the very bottom of her pack. All those hours of strenuous research and documenting, completely gone to waste. The idea of rehoming them to the nearest trash bin was suddenly more tempting than sifting through them for any salvageable passages.
It was as she went to put away the last of her books that she spotted it, hidden from curious eyes, the picture of her childhood. The colours had all morphed into one another, the edges were warped from damage and improper drying, and the faces she knew by heart had blurred into nothingness.
Not much reason to keep it now, I guess, she mused, curling the delicate paper into her fist. With a steadying breath, she tossed the image into the last of the fire, watching as the flames immediately consumed it. It’s not like you’re coming back to me anyway.
She slung her bag onto her shoulders, prepared to take on the day despite the weariness that she still felt. Vaguely, she realized that her trusted staff was nowhere to be found, and she added that to the list of things they would need to procure. How inconvenient.
Drawing back the curtains and letting in beautiful sunlight, she called out to her team, “Up and at ‘em! Let’s get the day started!”
She may have been out of commission for an evening and a night, but she was back now and if anyone was going to nag the party into action, it might as well be her.