“No End of Trouble”
by ‘pd Rydia’
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Author's preface: 
This story is an original creation of pd Rydia, a.k.a. C. Diane Kuhl.  She owns this piece and it is copyright (©) of C. Diane Kuhl, 2002-2003.  Do not copy this story in any part or whole, and especially do not claim it as your own.  If you find this story anywhere other than at RPGWW (http://greatdave.org/rpgww), please contact the author immediately, at pdrydia@hotmail.com.  You can use the same address to send feedback.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

My name was Jewell.  Yeah, that's right -- guess what I did for a living.  Uh huh...I was a jeweler.  Yeah, just like my father, my father's father, his father's father...and so on.  It stretches back quite a few generations -- I mean, whaddya expect?  People haven't been named after their professions in quite a while.

Ya heard me right, by the way.  My name was Jewell.  Sharik Jewel, to be exact.  Yeah, I realize I'm talking in the past tense -- there's a damned good reason for that, too.  I'm dead, ya see.

That's right...I'm dead.  Boo.

Heh.  Ghosts are supposed to say that, right?  Hey, laugh when I make a joke!  Hmph, no appreciation for humor.  You're like all these dead-weights around here...

Get it?  Dead-weights?  Aw, forget it.  No appreciation, I say.

Although, really, being dead ain't so bad.  It's kinda cozy here...nice and dark...and peaceful.  And there's lots of company.  The living world ain't got much on this place, really...

...

Well, maybe a few things.  Not a whole lot, mind ya.  I mean, there, ya got squallor, disease, filth, strife...all that jazz we don't have to worry about here.  Heh.  In the living world, you bust your ass every day and stress and strain to eke out a living.  You fight against time, never having enough to do all ya want, always rushed to do what ya don't want.  Nah, no thanks...I'm through with all that crap.

Really, the only thing that place has got that still interests me is my women.

What, what?  Ya think I'm sort of player?  I should hit ya for that...except I'm dead, yeah.  Damn incorporealness.  Geeze!  I was talking about my wife and daughter.

Well, okay, honestly...she ain't really my wife.  We never did get married.  Details, details.  Heh.  I was too busy getting lost in her eyes to worry about such details, and then it kinda got too damn late.

Those eyes.  Heh heh...those eyes got me into some trouble, lemme tell ya.  They got me into this whole damn mess in the first place.  Those beautiful, deep, sparkling blue eyes...

Ladon!  I'm a fool, ya know that?  Yeah?  Hey, shuddup.

Hmph.  Ya know, my father always told me -- "All humans are troublesome, but non-humans are worse."  Man, he was right.  Talk about Trouble with a capital T -- that's what this woman was!  Dammit, I wouldn't be dead if it weren't for her...if I'd just listened to dad's age-old advice...heh.  Well, as Mom always said -- "Logic is no match for the strength of the heart."

Terribly sappy, ain't it?  She was right, though.  And it got me killed.

-=-=-=-

Wanna hear more?  Alright, then...fine.  I got nothing better to do.

Trouble came into town one night when I was around twenty...something.  Well, maybe she came in earlier...I don't know, I never asked her -- wasn't exactly important to me at the time.  The point is, I first saw her around then.

I'd gone down to old Arvon's to get me some quality ale --the other places around Myrdel, they ain't so great-- and anyway somehow Arvon had managed to snag some chick performer.  In the dingy, smoke-filled, noisy-ass room, she stood out like...like the finest blue sapphire, set in crudely hammered brass.

She was a performer, and man, it was high-class stuff she was doing.  Okay, so her little bit of juggling and illusion, that wasn't that big a deal...though it wasn't too shabby, either.  Nah, it was her singing and dancing that was really extraordinary.

Her voice was like a siren's...I felt intoxicated before I even took a sip of my drink.  She sang songs I'd never heard before...in such a curious, foreign tongue...I could only assume it was an elvish language.  Her elegant, pointed ears marked her as a non-human.  An elf from topside, I could assume.

When she danced...wow.  She was a sheer flurry of colorful clothes and graceful limbs...as speedy and agile as any story describes elves.  And her hair...as she danced and spun, her hair flared about her in a circle, rippling like an ocean wave.

Man, like I said...Trouble with a capital T.  But as I mentioned before, what really got me into trouble was those eyes.  They're blue, like her hair...like the purest, most expensive sapphires in all of Draco.  They sparkle like diamonds in the light, with a vibrant life of their own.  And man, when Trouble stares at ya with those eyes...it feels like she's seeing straight through to the very core of your very being.  And you can't do anything but stare back, and hope she approves of what she sees...

Well, while Trouble was up there dancing and having a merry time, she happened to look my way.  Our eyes met...she was staring straight at me.

And she smiled.

-=-=-=-

I had ta open the store the next day, but I stayed at the bar all night, waiting for a chance to talk to the dancer girl.  A lot of time passed before I finally got my chance, just as the bar was about to close.

So yeah, we talked for a while.  When I asked, the girl said her name was Blue.  Heh, what kind of name is that, eh?  I laughed, and told her she didn't need to give me a stage name.  She just smiled.

We talked quite a long time.  About all what, I dunno.  Stuff.  I did most of the talking, to be honest.  I told her all about the jewelery store, and how I had just inherited it, how the family had kept it going through thick and thin over generations, since the settlement of Myrdel...I was bragging, I guess.

I don't think she really minded, though.  She seemed interested, anyway...she asked me questions incessantly, with open, childlike curiousity.  She asked about some of the simplest things...like how life was lived in the dome, and about professions and trades, and such whatnot.  I guessed that, being an elf, she didn't know about all this stuff.

To be quite honest, she kind of acted like a child.  The way she talked, the way she bounced around, the way she jumped up and gave me a hug before leaving for the night...it reminded me of a little girl.  But I knew better.  Her eyes told a completely different story from everything else...her eyes revealed her age and maturity.

-=-=-=-

I came back to see her perform the next night, and we talked after the show.  And we did this for a while.  Every night I asked her what her name was.  After about a week, she decided to answer me.

I remember it well.  The bar had been closed down, all the other patrons chased out.  Avron was taking a break from giving me baleful glares to check on something in the back.  Trouble seized the opportunity...and my shoulder, pulling me down so that she could whisper her name in my ear.

"Sizreina."

She pushed me away again, grinning like mad, and Avron barked out my name.  I turned around to see him glowering in my direction.  He was generous enough to let me say my goodbye to Trouble before kicking me out.

-=-=-=-

Sizreina -- what a beautiful name!  I was positively tipsy when I went home that night.  It stayed that way, too...up until the following night.

Like usual, I went to Avron's to meet Siz.  Only thing was, she wasn't there.

I stormed over to Avron to ask where she'd gone.  He told me she'd packed up to move on that morning, and left just a few hours ago.

Well, I did something.  I don't remember what.   I suspect it was hot-headed and not too bright -- probably involved yelling, some choice profanity, and perhaps some physical violence.  I say this because the next thing I remember clearly was being tossed out of the bar roughly by two of Avron's burliest employees.

I trudged home, completely downtrodden.  My life, as I knew it, had ended...my heart was crushed, and I was doomed to a cruel life of loneliness and sorrow.  I had myself quite worked up, ya see.  Ya can probably imagine my surprise, then, when I found Trouble herself waiting on the very doorstep to my home.

-=-=-=-

That woman.  Seriously, she could have warned me!  Trouble told me she wanted to, yesterday, but Avron had interrupted.  Figures.

So I asked her if she was really going.  She said yes, but she wanted to talk to me first.  Could we please go somewhere to sit down and talk about it?

A flash of anger crossed me, and I debated right then and there to tell her no.  Then, maybe, she'd stay...go back to Avron, keep performing there, and after a while, we could go back to talking every night, and...things'd stay the same forever.

But, yeah, it didn't take me long to figure out that was a crackpot plan.  And she was looking up at me with those damn eyes of hers.  I just couldn't turn her down.

We walked down the street, to a little bakery I like to go to in the mornings.  I got us some coffee, and we sat down to talk.  It was stilted conversation for a while.  Then, Trouble looked at me with those wretched eyes of hers, and flew into a narrative.

Her full name was Sizreina Yuo Baseton, and she was looking for her brother...Will something or other.  She was in Myrdel searching for him, and now that her scan of the dome was complete, she had to move on to continue her search.  She'd made a promise, you see.  And he was the only family she had left.  She had to do this.

She kept emphasizing that.  That she had to do this, that she had to search for her brother. Quite honestly, I was feeling kinda bitter, and wasn't feeling too charitable.  And I...kinda said some things I really shouldn't have.

Ladon, I regretted it as soon as I saw her eyes.  They were so full of hurt...those eyes weren't made to be sad!  Then, what happened next was...

I...I don't know how to describe it.  All the sudden...Siz was standing up, and she...had wings.  Silvery-blue, feathered wings...I guess she planned on flying away.  Heh, wings!  I swear, she always had something new in her little bag of tricks.  Only, this trick wasn't such a good idea...

Just as she looked ready to take off, a group of punks from a table over stood up, knocking their table over in the process.  One of them screamed out something like "demon," and another "dragon," and the third leaped at Siz, pulling a dagger outta nowhere and slashing her!

He got a couple of good slices in before I...incapacitated him.  His buddies were setting in on me and Trouble by then, but I screamed them down.  How dare they attack an avian elf?  Were they not thinking?  Throughout all of Draco's history elvenkind had helped the human race!

The twits weren't even thinking.  They looked terribly chagrined, and scampered off.  I woulda given them some things to remember, if I wasn't so concerned with Sizreina.  As it was, I wanted to get out of the public and get her somewhere safe.

I bandaged her up as best I could, with strips of cloth torn from my shirt, and carried her back to my home.  I cleaned her wounds and rebandaged them with better cloth...I don't have a doctor's touch, but she didn't complain.  When I was done fixing her up, we just kinda stared at each other for a while.

I'm sorry, we both said at the same time.  Trouble giggled, grinning lopsidedly.

I asked her, you're really a dragon, aren't you?  No, she said.  The proper word for her race was ryuujin.

I wanted to ask her more, but by then, there came a knock at the door.  I went to answer it, and found myself face to face with a police detachment.

Damn crime reports.

-=-=-=-

There were three cops there.  Three! Geeze.  I stepped outside the house, to stand on the porch while they grilled me relentlessly.

Yes, some young punks had just attacked my girlfriend and me down at the coffeeshop.  Yeah, I’d roughed them up a little.  I mean, come one, they attacked me!  It was all in self defense, I didn’t do anything particularly harmful.

Yeah, Siz just happened to have wings.  No, she was not a dragon…she was an avian elf.  Come on.

No, she didn’t start it!  The guys just leapt outta nowhere and started fighting!

No, they certainly could NOT talk to Trouble about the matter - she needed her rest, dammit!  She was hurt!

No, I did NOT want to press charges.

No, neither did Siz…NO they couldn’t ask her themselves.  Didn’t I tell them she needed her rest?

Could they come back later?  Yeah, I guess, I told them.  I immediately regretted it.  What was I gonna do if they came back while Siz wasn’t able to hide her race?

When, they asked me.  I never got to answer.  Just then, one of the cops had his walky-talky go off…they were needed elsewhere.  They said they’d come back later, and headed off.

Good riddance.

-=-=-=-

By the time I got back inside, Trouble was already up and about, investigating everything in my living room.  Geeze, that girl.

It took some convincing to get her to sit down.  Finally did, though.  Then we got to talking.

This time, she did the majority of the talking, and I was asking questions.  It was no wonder she'd been so quiet about herself before...Myrdel wasn't known for its tolerance of ryuujin.  But Siz, she was finally talking about herself, and her past.

She told me about her family...of how time had claimed the lives of her parents and older brother.  She told me of how she had been separated by her brother through mischance..  She told me of her childhood, and how close she and Will had been.  She talked about her travels while she searched for Will...

The words bubbled out of her mouth as if she'd been waiting years to say them, to find someone to share her stories with.  I held her, and I listened.

-=-=-=-

She stayed for a while.  It was a squeeze with my partial income, but I supported her.  Come on, she had to stay some place while she healed!

So she stayed a little longer than absolutely necessary...what do you expect?  I mean...ah, hell, nevermind.  That's none of your business.  Lucky for us, the cops never came back...the police are like that in Myrdel.

One day, Siz took me completely by surprise.  Again.  Out of the blue, she turned to me and said:  "Come with me!  We can search for Will together!"

I was shocked.  Come with her?  To gods know where, searching for some ryuujin we didn't know even existed?  I had a better idea...or, at least I thought I did, at the time.  I told her to stay with me.

And, well...she bit me.

Right on the shoulder!

Then, she hugged me tightly.  She understood...I was the only one left to take care of the shop...and I had to take care of it.  It'd been in the family for generations...there was no just giving it up, just like that.  Not for the sake of some wild goose-chase.

Siz was making up excuses for me.  They sounded...so empty and hollow.  I should have realized then...instead, I nodded, agreeing with her excuses silently.

But suddenly...Siz brightened, .  There weren't that many places left on Draco to search...soon, she'd have every inch of the world covered in her search for her brother!  So that meant, pretty soon, she'd find him!  In a few months, even.

So, in a few months --or sooner if she was lucky!-- she'd find Will.  And when she did, she'd be free to come back here...heck, she might drag Will along with her.  It'd be his fault for getting himself lost, ya know.  And then we could be together again...it'd only be a short time apart.

It sounded good, but I agreed reluctantly.  Something seemed...wrong.  The proverbial whistles were sounding in my head, and red flags raising in my heart.

Ya know, Mom always said to listen to your instincts about these things.

Oh, Ladon,  I wish I'd listened!

-=-=-=-

Well...Sizreina left, and weeks passed.  Months.  Then several months.  Many more months than Siz and I had originally planned.  I worried and worried.  I was ecstatic when I came home one day to find her waiting outside the door.

I was a little surprised at the, err, bundle she was carrying.  I hoped that wasn't what I thought it was...

Shit.  It was.

Well, I must say...we had one lovely, lively little daughter.  She had her mothers little pointed ears, feathery wings, and startling eyes.  But those eyes were a blue-green, and they were set in a face with features that were all too familiar from family photos.  Too, her little whisps of hair were a flaming red, matching my own.

Siz looked nervous, and after my initial shock, we hurried on inside.

Once safely inside, she filled me in on the details.

-=-=-=-

She'd had troubles on the way here.  Apparently, she'd been harrassed by some bonafide Myrdel "demon-hunters" ever since she left my home.  I knew she shoulda stayed.  She'd had to use a great deal of skill and magic to sneak her way back to my house without being tracked.

Our daughter was barely a few weeks old.  Sizreina explained that Little Trouble -we eventually decided to name her Reival- was too young to shapeshift to hide her wings.  Reival also had problems with keeping her third eye shut.

Ya see, ryuujin got this funny thing to them.  They got a third eye...right smack dab in the middle of their forehead.  It's freaky.  It's completely unnoticeable when the eye is shut, however...and it's almost always shut, you see.

Except when they're babies.  That little baby just could not keep that third eye shut.  Freaky shit.  I've seen Trouble's third eye before, and it spooked me out, too...she kept it shut most of the time, sometimes she tied a bandana over it to hide it.  A family trick.  The baby, however, did no such thing.

It was kinda cute, that kid.  Excuse me, she.  She was cute...even if she kept flicking open that damned eye of hers.  But, ya kinda get used to it with time...

Siz and I talked.  Just like old times.  We caught up on the last few months' happenings, sitting there in my living room, watching Reival sleep.

Siz still hadn't found her brother.  What a surprise.

Her eyes told me story before she did.  She was going to keep searching for her brother.  Somehow, in some way, she needed to find him.

I think I finally understood.  I mean...I've never had any brothers or sisters, but if Siz ever got lost, I think I'd search all of Draco to find her.  If she lost me, I was certain she'd do the same thing.

Of course, I didn't ask her to stay this time...though I wanted to.  I wasn't too keen on being a single father, but Siz’s spirit would not let her rest just yet, and the little one was safer with me.

Within a week, Siz was gone again.

-=-=-=-

It wasn't all that bad, though.  I've got a few friends, and one of them, Sharon, just so happened to be an old, trustworthy acquaintance of mine.  She helped me with Little Trouble.  And Big Trouble revisted periodically, whenever she thought it was safe.  She was there to watch our daughter grow up...kinda.

She never had any success finding her brother, and it was frustrating her.  I think, one night, she was on the brink of giving up the search completely.  That night, she was finally going to decide to call off her hunt and stay in Myrdel, with me and our daughter.

Unfortunately, that didn’t get a chance to happen.

So we were talking in the living room, right?  Sharon had taken the little one for the night, so Siz and I could have some "alone time".  Unfortunately, those damned fanatics had no respect for that.

They crashed into my home, a good three or four of them...I don't remember the exact number.  I didn't have a whole lot of time to notice such details.  I had just enough time to whip out my pistol, shove Sizreina to the floor behind me, and get out a few good shots.  Damn good shots, if I say so myself.

Heh.  I barely felt the hot lead tearing through my flesh, but I did feel the warm blood running down my chest.

My aim was steady and true...all four of the bastards...or was it three?  Hell.  Whatever.  They were dead, that's all that mattered to me.  Of course, I kinda was, too.  Well, not quite yet.  Sizreina was struggling to cast a healing spell on me...but she didn't have anything strong enough to mend a ripped lung.  Even if she had, she wouldn't have been able to cleanse it of the blood anyway...

I think I fell to my knees.  Siz bounced up and hugged me tightly...probably got her clothes all bloody.  A real shame, she always wore such pretty clothes...

That's what she gets, though.  This was all her fault, after all.  Heh.  I really hope she finds her brother.  It'd be a shame if I went through all of this for nothing.  Hey, maybe he'll help her raise our daughter...

Heh.  Dear Ladon...I loved her.  I still do, honestly.  One of these days, I'll see her again...

Sizreina Baseton.  Take care of yourself, love.  I'll see you again, when the time comes.