Zero No Tsukaima Fan Fiction ❯ Zero no Tsukaima The Holy Knights ❯ Chapter 2

Not a Dream

 

Seth opens his eyes and pain flows through his entire body, “Ouch......what a crazy dream.”

He sits up and looks down at his hands but what is below his hands he finds to be much more interesting.

'These aren't my blankets, Mom must've changed them before I got home, I don't know why she would.'

His eyes grow large and his pulse begins to quicken as he notices that he isn't in his room. He pulls the covers off his legs and whips his legs of the side of the bed. He plants his feet on the ground and as he stands something buckles in his right leg and he falls to the ground the floor releasing a loud thud sound, laughing at his stupidity.

The door to the room swings open and a girl is standing in the doorway, “Are you okay?” She puts down a cup of what seems to be tea and helps Seth back onto the bed, “You have a pretty bad burn on your ankle you should keep off it for a while.”

Seth looks at the girl ad his dream flashes before his eyes again, “This is too weird, I need to wake up.”

The girl looks at him with an irritated and confused look, “What are you talking about, you aren't sleeping.” Seth closes his eyes and starts mumbling about how he won't even remember this when he wakes up, “Hey you are awake!” She whips her hands down and accidentally hits his burnt ankle making Seth's eyes bolt open and his body jumps from the pain.

“Ow, hey what are you doing?” Seth slides of the bed and once again stands on the ankle but doesn't fall but he quickly hobbles towards the door. Seth reaches for the door knob but the pain in his ankle is too much and he falls forward and takes a seat on the floor, “This sucks.......”

The girl walks over to him and hands him the cup, “Here drink this it will help with the pain.” She smiles as she watches him cautiously take the cup and drink. “My name is Rain, remember?”

To his great surprise his pain begins to fade until it is more like a minor pinching pain, “Wow that stuff was great, what was in it, must have some drugs in it huh?”

Rain takes the cup and looks inside, completely empty, “I made it I have some healing magic skill and I used it on the tea.”

Seth finds this all to be very overwhelming, “I don't get it.....I'm gonna need some proof.”

Rain pulls her wand out from inside her pocket and a small droplet of water starts to spiral around the wand, “Good enough?” Seth shakes his head and states that such a trick is too dream like. Rain gets up and takes Seth's hand. She leads him outside and to the center of the small town, “Look around does this place look anything like where you come from?”

Seth looks around and finds all the two story stone buildings to be not familiar in the least, “Well no, but...................” Seth can't come up with any reason to not believe her and yet he doesn't want to accept it.

“Hey familiar!” Seth turns to see who is being yelled at just to find that he is the one being yelled at. The teen from before that burned him up walks towards him, “Wow, I'm surprised you are up and about already.”

Seth feels very angry all of a sudden though he can't really understand why, “Maybe you'd like to trying again, maybe you won't try to burn your sister this time.” All at once he understands why he is mad, not because Cloud tried to burn him but because Cloud almost burned Rain. Seth left arm feels like it's on fire and he looks over at it and he not only has a tattoo but it's glowing!

Rain steps between them, “Not this again, Cloud if you are going to lead you need to stop picking fights with my familiar, no one will respect and follow a bully who can bend fire.”

Cloud backs off and looks around and notices a few old people taking some interest in the small squabble. “Next time you'll show me proper respect commoner.” Cloud turns and walks away leaving Seth still angry and confused.

“What is his problem!?”

Rain turns around and slaps Seth in the face, “I command you to stop doing that!”

Seth's puts his hand against the stinging skin, “I was sticking up for you!”

“You have to show him respect, he is going to be the leader of these people soon enough.” Rain's eyes begin to tear up from angry or something else.... “What good would you be if you go burned to a crisp. Would you believe this isn't a dream anymore then!?” Rain goes to slap him again but this time he catches her wrist.

“I'm sorry.......” Seth looks down at the ground and lets go of her wrist, “I will try to show your brother respect.”

“So you don't think this is a dream anymore?”

Seth buries his hands in his pockets, “I don't know, no one usually cares about me or what I do, so if you do then that seems pretty unreal, but my burn, it felt so real.”

Rain gently takes his chin and lifts it up so that he is looking at her eyes, “I promise you, you are not dreaming. If you believed that this is a dream then you are not from around here.”

Seth smirks and steps back out of her grasp, “I am from the USA.”

“USA?”

“The United States of America......?” Rain shrugs and shakes her head. “Ummm....Okay I'm pretty good with places where is this.”

“We are in western Tristain.”

Seth begins to think about it then realizes that Tristain can't really exists because people who can fire blasts of fire like a flamethrower out of a staff would be something talked about in the news, “Is this Earth?”

“Earth?” Rain finds the term just as confusing as USA.

“So this isn't Earth, well that is odd.”

Rain begins to laugh, “What is odd is your clothing.”

Seth looks at what he is wearing a black shirt and blue jeans, “What is wrong with my clothing?”

Rain points to his pants, “That is such a strange looking material.”

Seth doesn't take offense to it but laughs at her for thinking blue jeans are strange, “Well what about you what are you wearing, a black cape a button up shirt and a black skirt, you look like a school girl from a comic book.”

“Comic book?”

Seth thinks about it, “A book with pictures in it, about heroes and villains.” She nods apparently finding no strange words in his explanation, “Anything else you want to make fun of.”

She shakes her head, “I think I understand, is there anything you wish to now about me?”

Seth mind floats towards less than classy questions, “Uhhhh......If Cloud is your brother and he is going to be leader one day is your dad like a king or a chief or something?”

Rain looks down at the ground, “Well, yes he was....”

“Was?”

Rain looks up at him, “He got sick a couple of months ago and died....”

Pain flows over Seth's body again though this time it is a different kind of pain, “If this isn't a dream than............”

“What is there something wrong?”

Seth fights back the pain, “No, no just all this talk about family got me thinking about something, do you mind if I wander around for a while.......alone?”

Rain notices his voice has become strained and can tell something is wrong, “Yes, but you got to come back before night time otherwise I'll have to punish you for not following my rules. You are my familiar after all.”

“Yeah........”

He turns and walks away heading in a direction that has the least amount of houses, “Mom......”

 

 

Seth finds a hill with a large tree overlooking the entire town. Behind him a small makeshift cross has been planted into the ground. The sun has begun to set and a beautiful sun set is made. As Seth is looking over the town he notices a group of people riding horses coming towards the town.

 

 

The leader of the horsemen gets off his steed and looks over the assembled mass of people, “I demand to see Squall, where is he?”

Cloud steps forward, “My father is sick in bed and I will act in his stead.”

The man looks over Cloud, “You seem rather young to be a leader of the town even a temporary one.” The man pulls out a knife and holds it to Cloud's throat, “Tell Squall I'll kill his boy if he doesn't come out and sees me.”

The crowd begin whispering amongst each other until Rain steps in front of them, “My father died a month ago, please let Cloud go!”

The man shoves Cloud to the ground, “You lied to me boy........It makes no difference whether you did or not we are here to tell you all that the payment has been raised by fifty percent.”

Cloud gets up, “We can't afford to pay you anymore than what we already do. Without my father we are having a very hard harvest we won't make any profit at all if you want more!”

The man smiles, “Like I said before, it makes no difference.”

“We can't pay you!”

The man puts his knife away and pulls out a wand and a large ball of fire begins to grown at the point of it, “If you can't afford to feed such a large amount of people maybe I should do you a favor and kill some of them!”

The man blasts the fire at the crowd. The world seems to slow down as the fire begins to close the distance to the crowd. Seth jumps in front of the fire and with a loud roar holds the flames back burning his hands in the process.

“Oh look at that someone with some guts.” Seth falls to the ground and quietly groans in pain at his burnt hands, “We'll take him.”

Seth looks up at the man as two others takes his arms and binds his wrists together, “Hey what are you doing!?”

The man slams his fist into Seth's gut knocking him out cold, “If there are any other opinions that need to be voices I'll here them now.”

Rain prepares to say something but Cloud takes her arm and glares at her silently telling her that this is the only way to get out of this situation without getting someone killed.

The men get back on their horses and ride of towards the east.

“Seth...........”