I really hate plot bunnies sometimes.

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Persistence
Chapter Five

Ceana panted with exhaustion, leaning against the wall of Alishar’s lair. She and her other party members were taking a short break before they went into bonus.

Without the steelies that Sedecire had given her, Ceana probably would have never found a party when she had begun Ludibrium Party Quest. She may be polite and kind to everyone she met, and always tried her best with everything she did…but sadly, she never had an easy time making friends.

Even now as she was about to withdraw from the Ludibrium quest all together, the only friends she had ever made were the ones back in Kerning City.

She and Lula had grown close through only her connection to Dereck at first, but pretty soon the energetic fighter (who was surprisingly quite the girly-girl ) began inviting Ceana over just to do simple things…take her shopping, braid her hair, watch a movie.

But all Lula ever wanted to talk about was Dereck, and Ceana just…did not want to talk.

Sedecire still acted pompous at times, but that aspect of her may never change. Besides, Ceana was quite used to it already. She knew that Sedecire had her reasons, and no matter how big her ego may get, she was still human.

Her party had finished resting…why was it that she always seemed to level at bonus? Perhaps it was just an odd coincidence.

And there it came, the blue engulfing light– power surging through her like an ocean. So long, Eos Tower.

She was too lost in her thoughts, as usual, to break any of the boxes in bonus. She even denied the gift Arturo offered her. She just didn’t feel up to it.

Ceana had an odd feeling in her head that had been tormenting her since this morning, like an itch you really want to scratch but can’t do in public. She was trying to see if it faded with time…turns out that time was not doing much healing, unfortunately.

Ceana wondered for a moment what her thief stranger was doing. She wondered how strong he was now. Hopefully he had not leveled too much since she had last seen him. Hopefully her non-stop Party Questing had paid off. She couldn’t remember the last time she had slept…it might have been two or three days ago.

As Ceana’s party re-appeared back in the one-hundred and first floor, she was struck with a pang of dizziness and stumbled to the ground. Not good.

A few came over to ask her what was wrong, but she could no longer hear. The noise around her slowly disappeared, and she collapsed to the ground in a heap of pain, which was now spreading from her head to her entire body. She would have cried, but the hurt was so intense that no tears could make it into her tightly-closed eyes.

And then her world was black.

~*~

Sedecire watched as a stretcher surrounded by doctors and nurses sped forward in the long, gloomy hospital hallway. They were discussing surgical procedures in a fast chatter of nonsense. The limp body of the patient in the stretcher was covered in blood, and the doctors were mumbling something about Zakum. Her heart did a backwards flip and she tried to turn away.

“That’s not Ceana, Sedecire.” Dereck answered her unspoken question.

“I know that!” She said with confidence, but shifted uncomfortably in her blue Anakarune. Sedecire had little patience to begin with, and waiting for them to move Ceana to her new room was shattering her nerves.

As the stretcher finally passed by, Dereck and Lula seemed to be staring intently at one person who was obviously not a doctor, he was just following what might have been his injured friend. He was fully clad in Dark Scorpio armor, and a Dark Identity which sheltered very unruly black hair, covering his emerald green eyes. Sedecire looked once, and then did a double-take. That guy was smokin’.

“Is that…?”

“Yea, I think…yea. It is!”

“Oh. Uh…”

And then Sedecire could no longer hear their hushed conversation.

“Who was tha…oh.” Sedecire finally realized. It had to be none other than the thief stranger Ceana had told her about ages ago. She had trouble describing him, Sedecire remembered, concluding that he was the dark brooding type with eyes that were the exact opposite.

Stupid Ceana. Trying so hard to catch up to that random boy she had met (who probably wasn’t even filthy rich ), just to give him back a blue potion? She thought it was utterly ridiculous and childish.

Though it is very like Ceana to do so, she thought. The girl had willingly given her the Maple Wagner, even though it cost a fortune. She had strong morals that she abided by no matter what the situation, and Sedecire could admit that she admired it.

A loud clang of metal hitting the floor shocked Sedecire’s ears, and she turned her head quickly to face the source. A young girl with orange hair pulled into two braids was frantically apologizing to a doctor for knocking over an entire shelf of equipment. Equipment that looked very, very expensive. To anyone but Sedecire.

The orange-haired girl then approached Sedecire, whose look of ‘I do not wish to associate with you, you disgraceful vermin’ must have worked, because the young girl stopped in her tracks and instead turned towards Dereck and Lula.

“Um…excuse me, where is Ceana? I want to see Ceana!” She asked in a childish voice. Sedecire now noticed that Carrot, as she was now going to call her, was carrying a wand.

“Why would Ceana want to see you?” Sedecire asked maliciously.

“Sedecire…” Lula warned.

“Hey, mister,” Carrot halted a doctor who had been walking by, “can you heal this girl? She has venom dripping from her mouth. It’s really scary.”

Sedecire was ready to reply with something twice as cruel, but the bed wheeling Ceana to her new room had just appeared around the corner. About time.

The female doctor, after getting the sleeping Ceana into her room, told Sedecire and the others to kindly sit down and shut the hell up. Sedecire unwillingly sat down in the seat next to Carrot.

“About your friend, the only reason she ended up like this was from simple lack of sleep. Her immune system just couldn’t reject as much bacteria as it is supposed to, and she caught the flu. She should be better in a few days, if she gets enough sleep. So I don’t want her out of this bet at all until the cold is completely gone.”

When Sedecire turned her head around, she was confused to see a dark figure standing by the door. She hadn’t noticed him there…had the thief stranger been there the entire time?

But as soon as he had seen her acknowledge his presence, he vanished.

…

She already hated him.

~*~

The dark figure walked like a shadow down the hallway of the hospital, and into a room labeled ‘Emergency Healing Only‘. Cleric doctors had just exited, leaving the patient inside for recovery.

The Hunter gear belonging to the patient was discarded in a corner of the room. His badly injured leg was wrapped up and raised for comfort, and many bandages of all sorts covered his torso. Blood stains were evident, but it didn’t seem to bother him. As the dark figure entered, the patient looked up in recognition.

“They said I can leave in four days, but I shouldn’t do any Zakum quests for another two weeks. I told them to go screw themselves, and that I’ll be out of here in two.” He laughed, but then winced in pain.

The dark-clad assassin leaned against the wall of the surgery room, his bright emerald eyes seemingly looking at nothing in particular.

“So? How is she?”

“Fine.”

“Did you say hello?”

“She was asleep.”

“Do you think she knows that you know?”

“Didn’t I just say that she was asleep?”

“You’re pathetic, man. Pathetic.”

“…I’ll kill you.”

“I think Zakum did a good enough job already, so I’ll have to pass.”

“…”

“Hey, lighten up! At least you’re not half dead, stuck in a bed for four days, being force-fed medicine that tastes like it came from Balrogs–“

“I’ll do it later, Kenda.” The assassin cut in before he could finish.

“Well, I guess I can settle with that.” Kenda said with a sigh, “can you fluff my pillow before you disappear again? I can’t move my arms.”

“…” The assassin merely shook his head and left the room, shutting the door behind him.

“Wait! Don’t leave! The pillow!“

~*~

When Ceana jolted awake, the first thing she become aware of was that she was in a very small hospital room. Again.

There was still a slight throbbing in her head, and her body felt sore. The room seemed twenty degrees warmer than she knew it was, and the heavy sheets were overbearing. She flung them aside and swung her legs off of one side of the bed, despite the protests from her aching body. She had to open a window. This room was making her feel claustrophobic.

Slowly walking over to the window, Ceana tried to open it. She tugged at the handle, but she couldn’t get it to budge for the life of her. She noticed that she was sweating, and her blonde hair began to dampen and mat to her face, neck and shoulders. Not very comfortable.

“F***cking window!” She voiced with anger. Ceana wasn’t a person to use foul language often, but she was never a happy camper when sick.

Groaning in annoyance, she turned around just as the door to her room swung open slowly. She startled a bit, afraid that it was a doctor coming to yell at her to get back into bed.

She caught her breath. It was something worse.

The familiar suffocating presence of her thief stranger detatched her from her senses as he walked into the room, his sea-green orbs unreadable. He raised an almost-hidden-by-his-bangs eyebrow at her in accusation.

He didn’t even remark about the language he had just heard. He just stood there.

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Ahaha. And I’m leaving it there for now…you will have to wait for the next chapter to see what happens with Ceana and her thief stranger!