In Each Other

Author's Notes: They are not mine. They belong to Squaresoft. If they were mine, I would sell them to the circus. This is a WIP, so there will be more chapters added as I get them finished. Also, credit for the poem at the beginning goes to Rumi, the greatest poet of all time.


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The minute I heard my first love story
I started looking for you, not knowing
how blind that was.

Lovers don't finally meet somewhere,
They're in each other all along.

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“Remind me again what we’re doing here?”

Norris made sure he was standing on stable ground and glanced over his shoulder at the speaker. Karsh, pale hair in a knot at his neck and pristine white clothes abandoned for more functional leathers, was grimacing horribly as he eyed the bubbling liquid on either side of the narrow bridge of land the two of them stood on. The sudden question startled Norris a little, as Karsh had hardly spoken two words to him since they’d set out, replying to anything Norris said with a grunt or a gesture. Norris, cursed with practicality, had taken it in stride and was, in fact, glad that Karsh had checked his usual habit of keeping a running commentary.

“Luccia asked us to find a Life Spark for an experiment of hers,” Norris replied absently, turning back to face forward. It made him slightly nervous to have the Dragoon at his back; the two of them did not entirely trust one another, although they had agreed to work this mission together. The only thing that stopped them from killing each other, Norris fancied, was respect for the other’s battle skills.

“Right. Life Spark. Gotcha,” Karsh muttered. There was silence again, then, for a little while. No birds sang in the marsh, and no animal called. So far, the only things the two of them had seen were a few goblins and an enormous praying mantis, all of them creeping stealthily through the poisonous muck.

The Hydra Marshes had once been green and beautiful, or so Norris had been told. They had supported a vast diversity of life, including the famed Hydra, but when an exploration party had come across the Hydra they had unthinkingly killed the beast. Shortly after, a poisonous muck had begun to seep into the waters of the Marshes and the whole place was now overcome by rot and death. Orlha, who had been Norris’s first choice as partner for this mission, had been so infuriated by the treatment of the place that she refused to go within five miles of it.

“What in hell is a Life Spark?” Karsh sna. Th. There was a splash and a growl from the Dragoon, and Norris turned around. He was rapidly losing his temper with the whole excursion in general, and Karsh in particular. Usually he didn't have such a hard time keeping his cool, but something about Karsh tried his patience immensely. Part of it, Norris suspected, was the fact that Karsh was utterly undisciplined, uncouth, and raucuous, and yet he still managed to be so charming that Norris couldn't bring himself to hate the man. It was quite aggravating.

“I don’t know,” he replied, his voice kept calm by a colossal effort of will. “But whatever it is, Luccia needs it and she asked me to get it for her. You didn’t have to come.” The last was added almost as an afterthought, spoken in a mutter as Norris was turning to face forwards again.

“What?” Karsh’s voice was low and tight with anger, but Norris refused to pivot again. Every time he twisted to speak to the other man, he nearly lost his footing. Karsh would just have to talk to the back of his head or not talk at all.

“I said, I don’t know what it is, but we could find out if-“

“No. What did you say after that?” A heavy hand fell on Norris’s shoulder and spun him around and, in a panic, he gripped Karsh’s wrist to keep from toppling over. The Deva’s clear amber eyes were fixed on him, full of such smoldering anger that Norris felt sure Karsh was going to pick him up and hurl him into the acidic ws.
s.

“I said you didn’t have to come,” Norris snarled, trying to shrug Karsh’s hand off his shoulder. The weight of it was almost oppressive, and just the touch of the other man made his skin crawl. But Karsh, by far the larger of the two, only gripped harder. Norris thought he could hear his bones creak, but he drew himself up and met Karsh’s gaze without flinching.

“That’s what I thought,” Karsh murmured, leaning close. His breath was warm and sweet on Norris’s face, as though he had been chewing on clover flowers. Norris shuddered and quieted his mind, almost afraid of what it would say about the uncomfortably close Dragoon. “Let’s get something straight here, Porre. I’m not here because I want to be. I’m here because I *have* to be. The world needs all the help it can get right now and I’ll be damned if I’m going to stand here and let you tell me that I didn’t have to come. This world is as much mine as it is yours, so I suggest you get off that high horse you’re on and open your fucking eyes.”

With that, he released Norris and stood up straight again, eyes glittering coldly in a stony face. Norris studied him for a moment, wondering whether it was worth it to risk a parting shot and deciding against it. He was the quicker fighter, but that speed did him little good when all he had to maneuver on was a five inch thick bridge of land. He turned, back straight and shoulders stiff, and continued to walk. His mind was a furious jumble of emotion, from rage to hate to confusion to desire and then back again, although his face and manner showed none of it.

Norris stepped off the land bridge with a short hop and settled himself amongst the roots of a tree, arms wrapped tightly around his knees. Karsh said nothing and perched on an outcropping of rock, staring deeper into the marshes as if trying to pierce the gloom and fog with his eyes. Watching him, Norris could almost believe that he could; those sharp golden eyes reminded him of nothing so much as a hawk. Indeed, Karsh seemed to be the human embodiment of a huge bird of prey, vicious and unforgiving. And Norris, who had never thought of himself as anyone’s potential dinner, felt helplessly pinned whenever that fierce gaze turned on him.

Dragging his eyes away from the Dragoon, he attempted to survey their surroundings but soon gave it over as a hopeless task. The trees clustered thick in this part of the Marsh, every branch dripping with thick glossy vines, and between their trunks a fetid fog rolled and crept, wrapping all in a thick haze of gray and white. It was all very unnerving for one who had rarely been in nature and, in fact, preferred the city. Norris soon found his gaze drifting back to the only bit of comfort he could cling too, and he studied Karsh with a keen analytical eye.

The Dragoon was well built, tall and sturdy like his father, but where Zappa’s strength was bent towards creation, Karsh’s was channeled into destruction. It was easy enough to tell; he bore large calluses on his hands from gripping the haft of his battle axe, and his sun-brown skin was crisscrossed with white and pink scars. The ropes of muscle in his bare arms and chest were reminiscent of Zappa’s, although settled differently. The swinging of a hammer in a smithy and the swinging of an axe on the battlefield produced quite a different grouping of muscle, although they were equally strong.

Around the face, however, he favored his mother more which gave him an air of pointed, graceful beauty. His mouth was large and full and just as accustomed to a smile as to a frown, his nose slightly crooked, as though it had been broken and never properly reset. His hair, which fell in a thick, shaggy mane about his shoulders, was so pale that it appeared white, and bore a lavender sheen in the sun. Norris was unsure whether this was natural, or if the lavender was a practical joke played by Marcy, Karsh’s fellow Deva.

His eyes, though, were what captivated Norris. They reminded him of a globe of amber he had seen as a child, perched on top of a gentleman’s cane. There had been a mosquito trapped in that globe, and Norris remembered staring open-mouthed until his mother tugged him away, fascinated by the crumpled form of the frozen creature. The Dragoon’s eyes were the same rich yellow as the amber had been and Norris wanted nothing more than to take Karsh’s face in his hands and gaze into his eyes, knowing that instead of some unfortunate insect, he would see himself, frozen forever in an endless sea of gold.

“Paint a picture, it’ll last longer.” Karsh’s voice sliced through Norris’s thoughts like a hot knife through butter, and the young soldier jumped. He could feel his eyes going wide, as they always did when he had been surprised, and he forced the muscles in his face to relax into their usual expression of cold indifference. Karsh was eyeing him, seemingly more amused than angry, and Norris counted that a blessing. The last thing he wanted to deal with was Karsh in a temper.

“We should be going,” he said, voice crisp. Karsh shrugged and rose, stretching as he did so. Norris paused for a split second, fascinated by the play of taut muscle in the Dragoon’s arms and back, but he managed to look away before Karsh caught him at it.

“If we go that way,” Karsh offered, indicating the direction he had been looking. “we’ll find a path that should take us to the middle of the Marsh. It heads that direction, anyhow.” Norris turned to him, unable to keep the surprise out of his voice.

“I thought you didn’t know the Hydra Marshes,” he said, almost phrasing it as a question. In return, Karsh offered him a grin, white teeth shining against his tan skin.

“I don’t. I saw it.” Norris shook his head, allowing a smile of bemused wonder to creep onto his features.

“You should have been an archer,” he remarked, falling into step slightly behind the Deva. “That axe is wasting your eyesight.” Karsh laughed, a rumbling chuckle that Norris could feel in his ribcage.

“That’s what my Ma says,” he replied, golden eyes glittering in the fog. “But there’s just something comforting about all that weight in your hand. Like having an extra arm. Da says he gets the same feeling when he’s at the forge swinging that great hammer of his.” Karsh ducked his head and Norris was shocked to see a sheepish grin twitch the other man’s lips. “Sounds stupid, doesn’t it?”

“Not at all,” Norris said, his voice slightly warmer than usual. Karsh glanced over at him, a curious expression on his face and Norris shocked himself by continuing. “Whenever I pull the trigger, I feel like part of me goes with the bullet…” There was a brief silence, and then, to Norris’s surprise, Karsh gave him a companionable clap on the shoulder.

“I knew you weren’t all bad, Porre,” he grinned. “You’re a true soldier, anyway, which is more than I can say for a lot of people.”

“Yes, well, we’re all full of surprises,” Norris murmured, returning Karsh’s smile with one of his own. The Dragoon threw back his head and laughed and Norris, finding Karsh’s mirth infectious, began to laugh as well. Perhaps it wouldn’t be such a bad trip after all.