Welcome to Gaia! ::

Satou slowly pushed open the door and peered around the corner. She did see anyone, and somehow that seemed strange. There had always been SOMEONE at the cabin before, and the place had never been silent. somehow that made Saty uneasy... almost like her family was gone.

"I"m out back! Did you two have fun?" It was Keppit's voice, and it was indeed coming from out back. It was a mere second and a half before the zombie woman came walking around the corner, hammer in hand. She took one look at Satou, dropped the hammer and rushed forward to hug the daughter she hadn't seen in so long. Satou was shocked by the move, but quickly relaxed into the hug. She could remember a time when she had hated this woman... but seeing as to how they had neither seen nor talked to each other in almost six months, Satou had come to realize that this zombie woman WAS her mother... and Satou had been missing her.

"You... you... Where the hell have you been?" Keppit's face was a torrent of emotion, and she plunged back in for another hug. Satou allowed this one too and found herself grinning ear to ear as she hugged her mother back.

"Keppit... I'm sorry." She pushed her mother away from her slightly so that she could look her in the eyes. "I've been living in the village. I told Ranald that." They were remarkably the same height, so there wasn't much intimidation going on.

"I know that." Keppit huffed slightly as she picked a leaf out of Saty's hair. "I just wanted to make sure that you were alright... I worry, you know. And I've heard terrible things about the village from Gus."

Saty smiled and laughed slightly. "But Gus has never seen it first hand, Mom." She blanched slightly as the word Mom, slipped out of her mouth.. she rearely called Keppit that... in fact, out of all the Kids, only Jen did. But as Saty glanced up to see how Keppit was reacting, she found herself grinning as hard as Keppit.

"Oh Saty, I've missed you so much." She picked another leaf out of Saty's hair and stood back to look at her. "You look thin, are you hungry?"

As much as Satou hated to be babied, she really was hungry. She'd walked all the way back from the village stopping only to rest and sleep. "I am actually... I'm starving."

"Here. Sit down and rest... watch some tv or something, and I'll make you a sandwich." Keppit turned and hurried over to the kitchen corner. The whole cabin was all one room, with three sleeping lofts in the ceiling, so Saty could still see her as she moved about the counters.

"Tv's one of the few things I didn't miss while I was in the village. I think I'll help you."

Keppit looked shocked for a second. The only time Satou had ever offered to help was when the Jivvin had watched Keppit accidentaly grill her hand at a bar-b-que a year ago... and then she had been more concerened for the cleanliness of the grill rather than that of her adoptive mother. "What did they do to you in the Village?" She said it with a laugh.

Saty laught back. "Here... I'll make you one and you make me one... how's that? Then I'm not helping, and for all you know I could be spitting in your sandwich."

Keppit grinned right back and shook her head. "It's good to have you home."

Satou found herself walking briskly across the village. She was a woman on a mission, and she wasn't about to be stopped. She was on her way to see Soyala, and though the prospect of seeing Soyala again was daunting, her mind was made up. She crossed the path in front of Bonnit's house and waved to the man as she passed.

The only time she stopped long enough to talk to anyone was when her boot came untied and she had to stop and fix that dilema.

Soyala's little house was, unfortunately, not only clear across the Village, but a short ways into the forest as well--not to mention invisible unless she wanted you to see it. However, she was actually quite looking forward to Satou's visit; the Daewl knew her guest would arrive shortly, even if Satou hadn't warned her of the visit, and was presently preparing some tea for her visitor's pending arrival.

Meanwhile, in the village, Lysius was just bidding goodbye to Raechel after a brief visit of his own to the Afya's. After a wave to the healer, he turned and started down along the road towards his own home to check in briefly before continuing on to the arena. Life in the Village had been comfortably dull of late, which meant a storm was undoubtably brewing somewhere. He would ensure that his Sarglins, at the very least, were ready when that storm arrived.

Initially he noticed Satou only out of the corner of his eye, and, crouched as she was to lace up her boot, he continued on past her without so much as batting an eye. However, only a brief moment later, her appearance clicked, and he froze in place. For the first time in who knew how many years, the Sargtlin looked....scared. Slowly Lysius turned in place, eyes narrowed in confusion as they fell back to the should-be stranger, for the moment simply watching her.

Satou finished tying her boot up and stood slowly giving herself time to stretch out her leg which had cramped slightly. She turned a little on her spine to try and get out a kink, and in the process she noticed Lysius staring at her... It startled her a little and she tried to pretend that she hadn't notcied... but that didn't last long...

"Can I... Can I help you?"

Fear gave way to complete and utter confusion as she spoke, and the moment she fell silent the Sargtlin started over, hesitating briefly just infront of her before placing his hands on her arms. "Satou?" Lysius seemed completely and utterly out of his element, not at all the strong,self-assured Sargtlin of moments before. "Saty? Wha... what are you doing here? Where did you come from? Where have you been?!"

Satou backed up slightly... a very confused look on her face.... "I don't.... how do you know my name?" It was a straightforward question and also a cheesy one. She knew it was cheesy when she said it, but she couldn't think of anything else to say....

"I don't think I know you..." Said with confusion...

"You are Satou," he mumbled aloud, more to reassure himself than to actually have her verify. There was no mistaking her. She was...different than when he had last seen her, certainly, but that had been...how many years ago? "Where have you been? Of course you know me." He paused briefly and what little hope had risen in his expression faded away once more. "..Don't you? Saty?"

She shook her head slowly... back and forth... back and forth... but she stared back at him. Meeting his eyes without faltering, somehow trying to tell if this was a joke.

But by the look on the man's face, it wasn't a joke. He really thought that he knew her... "My name is Satou... people call me Saty... but not many people, because only my family calls me that... I haven't seen them for months... " she stared back at him for a second. "You're very handsome... but I've never seen you before."


"You're joking with me," he insisted with a weak laugh, and gave her arms a little squeeze, smile returning ever so slightly. "You have to be. You couldn't just forget... That's impossible." Despite his words, he seemed far from sure of himself. It wasn't as if situations of the sort happened just every day. People didn't come back from the dead. "It's Lysius, remember? We... we're married, Saty."

When he gave her arms a squeeze she wanted to pull away, but when he said they were married she did pull away... quickly and forcefully. And the look on her face went from confusion to fear.

"I'm not playing with you. I grew up at the Jivvin center, and I lived in the woods with a human and other center Jivvins... I just petitioned to move into the village two months ago." She stammered the whole explination fearfully, as if saying it faster would make it easier to resolve this.

"I swear I've never seen you before..." She cowered from him... "You're scaring me."

Her sudden retreat stunned him, and he released her arms with complaint, hands hovering briefly in the air before falling back to his sides. "But..." He cleared his throat and ran a hand throat his hair, hesitating a moment longer before turning his back on her. What had he been doing? He was going somewhere--the arena. No, he didn't need to go there, the arena could wait. Saty had been in the Village for two months? And no one had told him?! No one had questioned it?! ...Maybe he was imagining things? He glanced back over his shoulder, half expecting her to have vanished, and when she hadn't he fought to control his expression and nodded slightly. "My...mistake. I apologize."

Saty just stood there clutching her arms where he'd held them. He looked so flustered, and it just scared her more... He really thought he knew her. But she DID NOT KNOW HIM.

She just nodded slowly "It's ok..." whispered the comment and turned back on her path to Soyala's... she took three or four steps before turning back to make sure he wasn't following her, and then she ran...

She ran as far as she could towards the Daewl's house before she had to stop and catch her breath. Saty stood there panting resting bent over with her hands on her knees... "I've never seen him before..."

Then she straightened and walked quickly the rest of the distance to Soyala's house... she was about to knock on the front door, but she turned back for one last look down the path... just to make sure.

nothing... *knock knock*

((just Fyi... Soyala has temporarily changed the door so that when Satou wnet through it she would end up in a certain place at a certain time... Anyone else going through the past door will end up in the standard timeframe ^_^ ))

Satou's head was spinning, and for a moment she wasn't sure where she was... visions of her mother's goodbye swam in her head... pictures of Gus and Soyala and Jack... The two wingeds that had shown her their sparring skills... Nate... and then her mother again, saying goodbye....

Satou opened her eyes and waited for the world to stop spinning. It complied, and she found herself sitting in a smoky room with a quickly retreating headache. She didn't have time to think about what was happening, becuase at that moment two figures came around the corner, fighting each other visciously. Satou jumped to her feet in confusion trying to figure out what was going on... and it came to her in a flash...

She'd walked through the door into the past. But this wasn't anything like Keppit had said... she was in the center, but the place was on fire! And there were... people?... here fighting. The smoke was getting so thick that she couldn't see who it was that was fighting. Satou turned and felt for teh door she knew she'd come through, but it wasn't there. The door was gone, and all that stood in it's place was a wall. This was not good.

She inched her way out of the room with her back pressed up against the wall as hard as she could make it, but all she succeded in doing was backing out of the room and into a man. With a grunt he knocked her to the floor, and barely missed her head with his foot. She scrabbled to her hands and knees, thanking whatever powers that be for the rising smoke. The air down near the floor was clearer and she saw the bottom of a window sill across the room. That quickly became her destination, and moments later she scrabbled ungracefully out the window and into a small shrub...

...which, thankfully, was mildly soft and only marginally on fire.

Saty rolled for a second and then took off running into the woods.

The House was burning. Fire billowed up through the upper floors, and was quickly spreading down to the lower levels. Not only that, but it was full of people--as was the land around it, people coming, people going, all with weapons, fighting, slashing, hacking through the billowing smoke at anything they determined was an enemy. Which, in the end, was surprisingly simple: one side had tails, the other didn't.

Satou charged off towards the trees and, as she neared, a group charged out to meet her, only to run clean past and towards the House she had just abandoned. Jivvins, all of them; reinforcements. And then the battle was gone and she was among the trees, with another Jivvin running directly at her side. He waved her forward and changed to Llar, rushing on ahead of her, mottled fur hardly visible in the dim lighting. "Keep up, hurry!"

Saty hadn't really looked up... all she knew was that she was running, and then there was another jivvin in four legged form running beside her, telling her to keep up. The recess of her brain informed her quickly that if she was going to be able to keep up with him then she'd need to changes as well... so she did.

It was a form that she hadn't used since she got her crystal, and so the first thing that happened was that she almost fell flat on her face.... but she didn't. Instead she ran, full length a step behind this other jivvin off to his left. She found that she wasn't in as bad a shape as she might have expected, but apparently she didn't have the endurance that he did...and she slowly began to fall behind.

He never once slowed his pace, but offered a word of encouragement here and there when he noticed her lagging. However, after a distinct amount of time had passed and the sounds of battle were lost in the distance, he came to a sudden stop in a flurry of leaves and, laughing, changed back to Quen. He was young--younger than her, perhaps, but an adult nonetheless, and looked strikingly familiar...though, in the dim lighting, it would be difficult to place.

He stepped past her, back the way they had come, and paused, listening briefly, before turning back her way and pacing back to his original spot to stretch his legs after the run. "Rest, we're safely away. I don't know you--you don't know the Village, then. I'll get you there, never fear."

Satou collapsed dramatically down into a sitting position, panting out her exhaustion. "That was the house! And it was on fire!" The words were said in between pants as she caught her breath. "That's.... " That's where I grew up was what she wanted to say... but something deep inside her clicked and her brain told her that it would be rebuilt... it would have to be, in order for it to exist in her own time.

She changed back to fourther and rested back on her hands. "Thank you. For helping me run out of there." She paused, wondering if she could ask who was fighting without sounding like a moron... and quickly decided she couldn't. Instead... "I almost got my head stepped on in there.

"It was, and it is," he agreed confidently, quirking a brow at her before resuming his pacing. He walked awkwardly, making a point to stretch his legs with each step. "Which means the fighting will probably end soon," he continued, and twitched an ear back in the direction they had come as if expecting the returning troops already.

When no sound was forthcoming, he returned to his odd pacing, and lifted a hand to brush aside her thanks. "You're lucky you didn't. And think nothing of it, it's my job. b*****d stuck me on runner duty, wouldn't let me fight." He rolled his eyes, clearly less than pleased with the situation.

She climbed slowly to her feet. "Oh I'm sorry." She laughed good naturedly. "I think I know how you feel. Nobody wants me to fight either. I keep getting stuck with the minor tasks that any old biddy, or tiny kid could do." Like chopping up the firewood while her cabinmates got to go practice in the arena, she thought...

none the less... "You said you were going to take me to the village?"

"He's overprotective," he replied somewhat bitterly, and pulled one leg up behind himself in another stretch. "Which is ridiculous, because I have more talent in my little finger than half of his so-called soldiers could ever dream of attaining." He paused briefly, catching himself, then nodded, and, letting his leg fall, broke into a light jog. "Up for a run? I have to get back, they may need help with the wounded."

Satou watched in amusement as the young man jaunted off, then she started at a jog to try and catch up. The first few steps she took were hard placed and out of rythm, but it only took a second or two *or three* for the steps to fall into place. She caught up with him, considering he was obviously going easy on her. "So that's what you do? You run the injured?" She jogged behind him a little. "Well I'm sorry then, since I'm taking up your time... I'm Satou by the way."

"I run whoever needs to go wherever during these skirmishes," he explained with a shrug of his shoulders, and cocked his head to spare a glance back after her. "With all the wards the Daewl's've put on these trees, it's almost impossible to get anywhere unless you know where you're going. So I'm the path guard. Which is basically the Sargtlin's excuse for keeping me out of the fights." He shook his head, but offered a smile. "Lysius. Keep up." And, returning his eyes forward, he broke into a sprint.

Satou stopped dead in her tracks... "Lysius..." The head of her rank in the future. She hadn't even recognized him in the shadows of the trees... and he'd seemed so much happier... His problems must not have started yet. She laughed to herself and started jogging after him again.

Satou was standing in the practice arena with a dull, but still well made sword. It had been several years since Satou had come to the past, and she'd almost lost track of how many... certainly less than fifteen all in total. She'd been taking sword lessons with Lysius for about five years now... He'd started her on dagger, and then they'd moved on to double dagger, and jsut last year she was promoted to sword usage...

the swords were getting the better of her.

Satou stuck up a pose and then went into the motions of pary and thrust and gosh darnit what was that last one? stab? couldn't be stab... too simple.

"You're still holding it wrong," he instructed with surprising patience, and stepped over to show her the proper grip for the umpteenth time. Once he and Satou had stopped biting each other's heads off whenever they spoke, he found he rather enjoyed her company. She was a good student, anyway... Or, at the very least, a determined one.

"You're holding it like you hold daggers. You can't, the swords're too heavy. You'll either overbalance and hurt yourself, or your opponent will knock it out of you hand. Here." And he plucked the the sword from her hand, only to set the hilt back against her palm and position her grip around it. "Like so. Let's try again."

Stepping away, he retrieve a practice-sword from where he had left it shoved point-down in the dirt floor of the arena, hefting it in his grip before nodding for her to attack. "You're offense, go."

She wasn't surprised when he plucked the sword from her grip... he'd done it a hundred times and she knew he was only able to do it because she was, indeed, still holding her sword wrong. With a sigh she adjusted it how she knew it needed adjusting. Then she took up her offesive position, which wasn't too bad considering it wasn't all that far from a dagger pose.

But after a few short parries and strikes, the teacher got his kill in and Satou pulled back with a sigh, letting the sword tip droop down into the dirt. "Maybe I'd better just stick with daggers."

He smiled sympathetically and jammed the bladetip down in the dirt once more, shrugging. "You are improving... I think the sword's too big for you, is the thing. Not that you can't handle it, but it's more than you're used to..and, frankly, more than you need."

Turning his back to her, he stepped towards the edge of the arena to pick through the assortment of weapons they had brought along for the practice. "Could try a shorter sword if you'd like, but I really see no point in that. You're good with the double daggers. You're small and quick, it's easier for you to avoid swords than block against them. Keep the long blades for hand to hand combat and hold onto a few short daggers for throwing, and you're set."

"Hmmnnh." She smiled sadly but with humour. "So I'm a sword fighting failure." She walked over to the weaponry and dropped her sword in the pile. Glancing over the other stuff she pulled her hair into a tighter knot and picked up two medium sized daggers... her personal favourites.

Then she struck up a defensive pose and shook her head at him mockingly. "It's not your fault that I can't manage the swords... you're not all that bad a teacher." And then she laughed... "You'll be sorry you taught me daggers so very well."

He shrugged. "Can't be good at everything. I'm the only one who can get away with that," he added after a beat, and, grinning, abandoned the pile while she selected her new blades. Laughing, he retrieved his sword from where he had stuck it and gave it a little sweep towards her. "The day you and your little knives beat me in battle, Satou, is the day I hang up my sword and become an honorary Afya."

Satou stood in the doorway, leaning against one of the posts, as she watched the little village children run from the yard yelling about the Ssan. It was her second favourite time of day. The time when Satou would go out in the yard to enjoy the sun and the younger set would just 'happen' by to ask her stories about the recent fights and missions she and Lysius had been on. They'd all sit on the fence posts and that old stump at the corner of the yard and listen intently to whatever she wanted to tell them... and she loved telling them stories, and then she loved watching them run off pretending that they were in the ranks of a skirmish. They seemed to hold a certain respect for the adults in the village, Lysius more than most, and who better to tell stories of him than the jivviness that lived with him? .... Satou smiled as she thought of Lysius.

He'd had a really bad week... his dad had died.

She turned around and looked back into the cabin. The place was rather clean and tidy, and it smelled of soup. She wasn't normally very domestic, but she figured Lysius could use a good hot bowl of soup after his meeting with the council.

A rough week indeed. More fighting early in the week--fighting that had resulted in his father's death. And expected fighting at that, unprovoked. It had been a hassle to the Council and the Sargtlin rank in particular, and in coping with the battles his father's death had been glossed over with less reverence than Lysius would have liked. But the funeral had been fitting, and now...well, now they moved on, and now they followed a new leader.

Despite himself he managed a smile as he hurried on down the road towards his home. What with the events of the weak and his clear determination to make it home quickly, no one he passed pressed conversation, not even the pack of children who he more than expected Satou to be telling stories to. He made it home without delay and waved the group away, greeting Satou in the doorway with a kiss on her cheek and looping an arm around her waist to steer her back inside.

"You've been cooking?" he asked as the smell of soup greeted him. He sounded surprised.

She laughed. "I tried. It's just soup, but I thought you might have had a long day." Truth be told she had a good idea of what the meeting at the council had been all about, but she wanted him to be the first to say it.

She spun around out of his grasp and smiled at him. "So? How was it? ... I see you're still in one peice."

"I don't think anyone can spend a day in Hrandic's company and still have energy to burn." He grimaced as if the very memory brought him pain, then laughed. "Soup's perfect."

She spun away, and he stepped around her to continue for the kitchen, utterly ignoring her question until he had lifted the lid from the pot to take a peek at the soup. "It was the Council, what more is there to say? Hrandic's as obnoxious as ever, Jatin's still tossing sarcasm around, and Soyala was hovering in the background giving me the creeps the entire time. I think the only person happy to see me there was Aleda. Though, I'll have to get used to it." Chuckling, he set down the lid and turned to face her. "Because, you, my dear, are looking at the new head of the Sargtlin rank."

"Oh Ly!" She flung herself into his arms and seemingly tried to hug the life out of him. "I'm so happy for you!" She'd suspected, of course, that this was the news he would have...

Sometimes... sometimes she got chills unexpectedly. She knew, basically, what was in the future for all these jivvins around her. She knew that Soyala would live for hundreds of years and get more and more powerful as the years went by, she knew that Lysius would end up head of his rank, she knew that Hrandic would be replaced with Kyros, she knew that the village would live on and on... and she knew that.... but that wasn't important. Not right now any way.

"I'm so happy for you! You deserve it, and it's what the Sargtlin would have wanted..." She paused and smiled at him sadly. "I mean, your father... I guess you're the Sargtlin now." She reached one hand up and pulled his hair straight in the front. "You'll make a great Sargtlin.... I just know it"

He laughed and returned the embrace, sidestepping to keep either of them from falling into the stove or the pot of soup. "They shoved the job on me at the worst possible time, what with these fights... Everything's going to be different now."

His smile faltered briefly, but soon returned, and he placed a hand on her shoulder, lazily playing a lock of her hair between two fingers. "But we'll manage. We always manage." He paused for only a beat, hand sliding down her arm to capture hers. "I want you to marry me, Saty."

Saty frowned without meaning to, and a chill ran through her. Things she had been avoiding thinking about came rushing to the front of her brain and visions of Soyala floated around with phrases that had been haunting Satou for forty years.... 'Hasn't been quite right since his wife passed,' and 'Pay him no mind, he mixes people up sometimes. He lost a lot of friends to the massacres.' .... then the haunting image of the first time she had ever met Lysius.... 'Saty we're married' ... ... She forced the throughts down back into the recesses of her brain and slowly the world begin to quit spinning. She only had to tell herself that she wasn't Lysius's wife, she wasn't Lysius's wife... she wasn't....

The room came back into focus, as did the Jivvin she loved, with one lock of her long blonde hair curled lazily around his fingers... She realized she probably didn't look as happy as she should....

"I love you. More than I've ever loved anyone or anything... I wish I could marry you, but..." Her brain grasped for a reason that she could give. "It's not the right time." Lame... but all she could come up with. She leaned into his arms and tried to melt into his embrace... If she wasn't his wife then she couldn't die... right?

A frown was certainly not a good sign, nor did the fact that she was avoiding his eyes. He realized it hadn't exactly been a proper proposal, nor a particularly romantic one, but that was typical of their relationship. They weren't romantics, they were Sargtlins. And they loved each other, and...what was wrong, exactly?

She sunk against his chest, and, out of habit, he wrapped his arms around her before realizing he had done so, one across the small of her back, the other behind her shoulders. However, he managed for force a smile and replied with only a nod. She had her reason, even if it didn't make much sense to him, and he wouldn't press. If it wasn't the right time, that meant there would be a right time. It wasn't a flat out no. They had all of eternity together. He could wait.

"Another time, then," he finally replied with a bit of a grin, dipping to meet her in a brief kiss. Straightening, he released his embrace and turned back to the stove, reaching over to retrieve two bowls from a cabinet. "Soup?"

Satou rubbed at her forehead a little. That was the one thing that she'd missed most in the last 60 or so years... asprin. Something as small as a headache was so annoying, but too small to take to an afya really... too insignificant. But as far as headaches went, it didn't hurt much, so she chose to ignore it. Immiediately after she had the thought she felt foolish and selfish... of course there were things about the future that she missed, things like her family and friends... but life here was so much better for her. She'd finally found the place where she belonged... and every day only felt more and more right to her... it was wonderful...

she stooped and gathered a handful of pine needles in her hand. She wasn't quite sure why she was out here, but not even the threat of rain could keep her from enjoying the last of the seasons's heat. So she was walking, letting her legs carry her to wherever they felt like.

Finally, finally, Jack had made it back to the time he...thought was right. He hoped it was right. The Past Door had been finicky, something altogether odd in itself. Initially it hadn't wanted to open at all, then it had sent him to only a few days before, then the typical time, and, after some tweaking, the time he was sure Satou must be in. The door wouldn't have selected it if someone not of the time wasn't there, right?

It made sense to him, anyway.

The familiar trek towards the Village from the House was not so familiar anymore, and Jack had to double back more than once to avoid being tricked by the trees. They didn't seem terribly concerned with keeping him away, however; another time or not, he was still a Jivvin. It was one such doubling-back that drew him away from the initial path and, surprisingly, tugged him towards Satou, perhaps sensing that neither was quite where he should be.

He caught sight of her through the trees while trying to find the proper path again, and abandoned his search in favor of hurrying across the ground towards her. She looked...different, somehow, but he couldn't quite place her. "Satou!"

Satou jumped as her name was called, though not as much as she might have at one point... there hadn't been too much fighting lately, so she wasn't as on edge. It took her a second as she squinted through the trees at the approaching figure, he seemed familiar... and as he approached her mind began to flail, somehow knowing that it knew this jivvin and working overtime to place him...

"Yes, do I...." Jack.... "JACK!" her eyes went wide and she grinned over at him in confusion and glee. "Boy, ask and ye shall recieve..." She laughed and jogged over towards him, bringing them face to face. "I was just thinking about you... and other people too... but I was thinking that I missed you..." Her brain began racing... this was the future Jack right? He looked about right, but in 60 years memories tended to fade away and be rewritten by over zealous brains... Jack had grown up a Center Jivvin right? And the center wasn't here yet... as far as she could tell that was quite a long ways off yet... so this MUST be the future Jack, come back in time... but..

"Why are you here? Don't get me wrong, it's great to see you... but..."

"Satou," he repeated, forcing a grin. Now he knew what was different. She looked like she was a Wild--a true Wild, like any of the others of the Village. She dressed like them, she moved like them, even her voice had a slight accent to it common to those Jivvins of the Village. And she looked...older. Not much so, but not quite as young as before. Was this the wrong time? Too late? But if she was here, he couldn't have shown up sooner. This would have to do.

"Checking in on you," he lied, deciding he would have to rethink this if she had spent some amount of time with the Wilds. He doubted she would leave voluntarily...but the repercussions if she didn't... "And the time. The door was doing something strange, and I wanted to see where it was. How long have you been here?"

She narrowed her eyes at him and shrugged... " I don't know... It's been a long time. Longer that I could ever have imagined... I stopped counting at fifty years..." She looked over his face for a hint at what was really going on in his mind, but it had been so long since she'd talked to him. "But it hasn't been that long for you has it..." It wasn't really a question.

"Would you like to come to the camp for dinner? I'm not much of a cook even now, but it's better than nothing... and we can catch up..."

"Fifty years," he echoed quietly, surprise clear on his face. Well...that complicated things indeed. "Wow. And I've only been alive three," he laughed, shaking his head. "It's only been a few weeks, yeah. I'd have come sooner, but the door..." He shrugged. "Time works in odd ways."

"I was actually trying to avoid the Village," he admitted, glancing past her through the trees in the direction he assumed it must be. "Rather than explain my unexpected arrival all over again. These are more suspicious times, if my 'history lessons' serve me correctly? I'd rather they don't start up a ghost story of me when I appear and disappear again the next day. I was actually going to see about picking up a meal in that little town by the House," he added, nodding back the way he had come. "Would you like to join me? You can tell me what...what all you've been up to these fifty years."

She smiled over at him. She did remember that he'd not had much luck with the village in any timeframe. It was one of those things about Jack, but he never talked about it around her so she had never asked. Instead she smiled over at him and shook her head. "C'mon." She started to walk towards the house... "I've not been up to much actually, it's been mostly what you'd expect. I joined the Sargtlin ranks, tired to learn swordplay and was told to stick to daggers... which I'm quite deadly at by the way... just so you know." She laughed. "Two weeks..." She remembered telling her mother that she'd be back before she knew it... that 200 years would pass for Keppit like a day... more like two weeks apparently.

But If the older version of Satou wasn't there in the future now... that meant...

No... she wouldn't think about it. "I want to ask you what you've been up to, but it's only been two weeks!" she laughed again.

A tiny nagging feeling in the back of his head told Jack that this could only end badly, but the rest of his mind was firmly set on its goal. Satou being here could throw everything off, she had to come back before she did any damage; by the sound of her short explanation, she hadn't. The loss of one Sargtlin shouldn't change anything.

He walked at her side back towards the House, keeping to this path much more easily than the one coming. "Fifty years training with the Village Sargtlins, I'm not surprised that your 'deadly'," he teased, flashing a grin. "Even if you were told to stick to daggers."

"I..." He grimaced. "I have been busy trying to get the Past Door to work again, because something tweaked the time it was set to send to, and I have been dealing with a...bit of a demon problem we had with the House. Someone opened the door to the Fifth Floor," he explained, sighing.

"really?" She knew that was bad... in this new life she had she'd helped deal with a couple... but they were mostly left up to the Daewls, so really all she'd done was watch. "I'd imagine that kept you and the others busy enough for two weeks..."

The conversation continued on through the woods, each one coming close to topics that probably should have been brought up, but never quite making the leap... for whatever reason. As they neared the house Satou stopped and peered through the woods at the building. "Something about this building now... it makes me a little edgy. When I first came back it was on fire..." Her voice faded off as she stared at the building. Then she snapped her attention to Jack. "maybe that was the reason the doors wouldn't open for you... something to do with the fire?" She was grasping at straws, but then she never really did understand the doors...

"...That may be it," he admitted thoughtfully, glancing ahead through the trees to the one-again-magnificent building. In this time, the House was still castle-esque, and was probably called something completely different, but the damage from years before had long since been repaired, and the structure gleamed like new.

"But this isn't the time the door normally goes to, you know," he pointed out, forgetting himself for a moment. "Nor was the time it took you to. I'm still not sure how it managed to bring you there in the first place. It shouldn't have. I had to argue with it a while to find you again." Jack shrugged. "The normal time is several years in the future from here."

"I thought so..." She shrugged "I'd never been to the past before so I really didn't know, but from what everyone told me this wasn't it." She rubbed at her forehead again remembering that day. "I came through the door and the building was on fire... and there were people and jivvins fighting and..." She shuddered to a stop... "It was all I could do just to get out, and then once I was out, the runner assumed that I was a rescue and he ran me back to the check point. It was so confusing, and I had come through the door to be in the past afterall... so I stayed." She smiled to herself as she remembered that day, the first time she'd met Lysius... well not exactly, but it was the first time she'd met HER Lysius... he'd been so young and headstrong and sure of himself... oh how she'd hated him.

And that made her laugh again. "I'm really glad that you've come to visit Jack. Don't get me wrong... I'm really really happy here... but it's been so hard not to talk about the future and even harder not to miss people..."

"You arrived during the massacres?" He raised a brow, glancing curiously towards her. The situation couldn't have meant anything else, especially if they were guiding Jivvins straight to the Village. That just didn't happen...at all after that period. He was silent for a long moment, then grinned as he led the way up towards the actual building of the House, forgetting the initial plan to have lunch in the little town. "You must be one of the oldest Jivvins in the Village now. You haven't missed much...Everyone misses you, I'm sure, but you haven't exactly been gone long to us."

It panged her a little that she hadn't been missed all that much, even if it was only because she'd been gone such a short while... but at the same time it also pleased her that it didn't hurt as much as it could have... she had a family here. She had Lysius and a whole village who admired her and looked out for her... she didn't have either of those in the future. "I am... though I don't feel old... sometimes, and it's silly mind you, but sometimes I get the feeling that they're really just giving me respect because I'm bonded to the Sargtlin." She shrugged... "But not so much so in the last fifteen years..." She stopped a minute to think... "Come to think of it that was only about five years after he was appointed... so I guess I'm not as pathetic as I seem." she laughed again and then went silent at the look on Jack's face...

Jack froze in step, tensing and straightening up as if he'd just experienced an electric shock. After a long moment, he turned to peer down at Satou, concern clear on his face. "...Lysius? You're with Lysius?" he pressed, frowning deeply.

"Yes..." She frowned deeply at Jack's frozen stance and her heart began to leap and race with fear... she wasn't quite sure what she was afraid of right now, but Jack's face inspired new terror in her... She tired desperately to put a lid on her emotions, but her voice still cracked slightly as she whispered the next sentance...

"Must be almost 20 years... though we've been working together since the day I got back... he....he was the runner... he... he jumped on an Oplyn to keep me from getting hurt and that was when he still didn't like me... ... ... and I didn't like him...." She stared at him in silent terror for a second then "Stop that... stop looking at me like that... you're scaring me... a lot."

Time stood still. Or should have. Time should have been as terrified as Jack was at that moment, and Time should have stepped back, shook its head, and set the line straight. But it didn't. And, after a pause, Time kept walking.

This was Lysius' wife. This woman was, indirectly, the cause of every foul thing that had befallen him since the unfortunate day when he had wandered too near to the Village. This woman was the reason Lysius hated him so much, this woman was the reason his own wife had been beaten and one of his children wasn't his own. And right now, if he let this woman walk away, all of that would never happen.

But he couldn't. Because it had. And that couldn't be undone.

Satou wasn't the one who had screwed with time. He was.

"...You have to come with me," he finally muttered, snapping free of his daze and pulling his eyes from her. "You just...have to trust me on this, Satou. I need you to come back to the real time. To the present. Right now."

Satou suddenly found herself standing outside her own body staring at the scene in front of her.... that couldn't be her, and that couldn't be Jack... Something was wrong with ehr perfect life if one of her best friends was here trying to ruin it...

"Jack... you don't understand... this is where I belong! I belong with Lysius! Here in this time in this village!" She actually getting quite worked up over the situation. "I can't leave... not right now, not ten minutes from now, not later! I'm bonded! I tried so hard not to let it happen, but it DID!" She forced herself to back off, to calm down... and it worked a little, but her heart still panged away at her keeping the uninvited panic nearby...

"I know, Satou," he replied quietly, his tone apologetic, though a clear undertone of panic was beginning to rise. He was as terrified by the dilemma as she was. "But you can go...back to being bonded there, Satou. It has to happen. Don't you see? It's already happened. You have to leave. Now. Come with me," he insisted and, without waiting for a response, grabbed hold of her elbow and steered her up towards the House.

In the Village, Satou's panic was mirrored by an identical fear, and within seconds a rescue party was gathering and on its way.

She wasn't sure what to do. She couldn't let him take away her life, she couldn't let him do it. What would it be like to leave Lysius? Panci panged through her harder now as Jack held her firmly but not hard enough to bruise. Her mind raced with warnings from 60 years ago, with truths told to her by many people... and then the image of Lysius from the future faded into her vision, 'Saty, we're married' ... she could remember the look on his face as plain as day, so panic'd and sad... so haunted... it wasn't the Lysius she'd come to depend upon...

She wrested her elbow from Jack's grip and turned, taking up a defensive stance just on the front stoop, moments from the door. "No Jack, I can't... I can't do that to him..." She reached instinctively for her daggers, but they weren't there... she hadn't put them on this morning...

"This isn't optional, Satou," he snapped, beginning to lose patience as his determination gave was to fear. Fear of what would happen if he lingered here much longer, fear of how his return to the present would be greeted. Of only one thing was he certain, and that was that neither of them should be here, and both needed to leave. Both would leave. They had already left.

Stepping past her, he opened the door and waved for her to enter. "Don't think I won't fight you, Satou, though I'd much rather avoid it. I'll win. I've already won. Don't you see? It's already happened. You have to leave."

"Jack" She gave a sob as she stared through the door... On the one hand, if she left she wouldn't have to face the future that Soyala had promised, but on the other hand, if she left she'd be giving up on everything... "Jack don't do this to me!" She'd been doubting the future for years, but for no other reason that she didn't like it... so far she'd had no reason to doubt... if she just left with Jack now...

"I can't!" Her fear and panic turned into anger, the same way a cornered animal reacts to being threatened... she glanced around the building facade looking for something better than her hands, and as if the whole situation had been planned there was a crest with two crossing swords on it, waiting to go above the doors... She kicked out at it, disslodged them and groped for the one closer to her... and she held up the sword it became obvious that she knew at least a little about them, but that she wasn't going to be much of an opponent.

She was as terrified as he was--near tears, from what he could tell. He hoped she wouldn't cry. This was terrifying enough without having her crying too. For a brief moment he thought she was going to leave peacefully, despite her words, and then...she ran for the sword.

Jack sighed, shaking his head. He, unlike Satou, had a sword with him, and one he was quite familiar with. He had had training of his own in the Village and knew better than to travel the forest--in any time--without some form of defense. "You'll lose," he reminded her quietly as he drew his own sword and started towards her. "You've already lost, Satou. Fighting's not going to change it. Just come with me."

She shook her head slowly... “I can't. I wish I could, it would be so much easier... and.. and I would have before, but that's not me anymore... “ She was starting to shake slightly with a combination of the anger and the fear, but still she stood her ground. “I'm not leaving through my own power, I'm not doing it.... ... I choose to stay.” Then she started to back away from him sword held protectively in front of her.

"You can't choose to stay," he retorted, frowning, and, his own sword held ready, began to circle around between Satou and the forest. If he could keep her from running, he could send her back into the doorway if it came to a fight. Of this much he was sure. "It doesn't work that way, Satou. You will leave, one way or another. You have to."

In the trees, approaching the House, leaves rustled, branches swayed...

She shook her head again and frowned at him. “I can sure try to choose. You have my answer, Jack...” And as she backed away her heel came in contact with the other sword handle and she stumbled. She didn't lose her balance, but she did lose her concentration and her common sense. Instead of letting herself stumble backwards she threw herself forward and launched into a sword fight. There were only a few flicks of swords before she heard footsteps and became distracted. Her imeidiate thought was that help was here... that she was saved... and she swung her sword the wrong way to block Jack as she twisted slightly to get a better view of the bushes...

She was backing away, backing towards the door, and then she was lunging forward and Jack's sword came up in a parry. The battle began, blades clashing and pinging off each other, glinting in the inappropriately warm sunlight. Today should not be so lovely...

Staring back at Saty from the forest, oval eyes peering hungrily from a bush near the edge of the trees, was a Ssan--and a large Ssan at that, scales a motley of deep greens which blended near to perfect with the forest surrounding it. Only the gold eyes betrayed it, meeting briefly with Satou's as a toothy grin spread over the creature's face. A second grin appeared, and a third, several pairs of eyes watching the sword battle from the shadows of the trees. It was unusual to see so many Ssan in one place, but they seemed comfortable, waiting, as if something had drawn them there...

Satou fought like a panicked beast, and it was her good fortune that Jack wasn't trying to hurt her... only steer her towards the door... but Satou didn't want to be steered anywhere but back into the arms of Lysius and the life she knew. So it was that she glanced back at the bushes once more only to see the gold flecks in the greenery... truly the last pair of eyes she wanted to see at this point, and a wave if despair washed over her as she stumbled to a halt and dropped her sword on the stonework, Jack the last thing on her mind. She pointed wearily at the brush.

Jack took advantage of the lull in her attention, striking forward with his blade in an attempt to disarm her--and coming far too close for comfort to actually striking her when the blade he expected to hit suddenly wasn't there, but on the ground. Breathing a sigh of relief for the near-miss, he followed her glance towards the trees, sigh giving way to a hiss of disgust when he picked out the pairs of eyes watching them from the trees. "Ssan... Too many for us if they attack. Hurry up," he snapped and took her wrist, trusting that this threat, at least, would keep her from continuing her fight.

However, just as he turned to go, a new series of snaps and crunches among the brush signaled the arrival of a second group. Satou's rescuers had arrived in the form of a small group of Sargtlin--the first Lysius had been able to contact upon sensing her distress. More, undoubtedly, were on their way. Unfortunately, said rescue party was also unaware of the group awaiting them at the edge of the forest; the Ssan, meanwhile, seemed to have expected their arrival.

At the sounds of their approach, the group of Ssan lost interest in the pair near the castle, disappearing back into the undergrowth as easily as shadows. Just as the first Jivvin--a male, blue with creamy stripes--came within view, the mottled green Ssan lunged from cover, jaws clamping down on the unfortunate's neck while a dagger in each scaled hand stabbed repeatedly towards every inch of available flesh. And the battle was joined.

Satou just stared for a moment, her mouth hanging slack as she watched the scene unfold in front of her... then she leaned down and scooped up the sword in her left hand and started to dash out to where the Ssan and her husband were fighting... only to stop, tethered by Jack's grip on her wrist.

She turned to face him, the two of them stretched far apart but connected by Jack's hand at her wrist, and she glared at him. "Jack... I'll cut your arm off." All she knew was that she had to help Lysius.

Jack hesitated as the battle unfolded, torn between spiriting her back to the correct time and helping the little that was quite obviously in trouble. Between the small number of Jivvins and the ambush set by the Ssan, the Sargtlins were caught hopelessly off guard, though once in their Quen forms, they weren't quite as easy a target for the likewise-humanoid Ssan. But one was already down for the battle, possibly never to rise again, and the others didn't seem to be faring much better.

"...If you fight now, you come back with me when it's over. Willingly," Jack offered, though his voice left no room for argument on the subject. "Or you can try to cut my arm off, and I can drag you off to the future without you knowing how Lysius's comes out. Because we both know he lives."

She pursed her lips and jerked her hand slightly in his grasp. It felt like an eternity before she looked him square in the eyes and shook her head. "I'll tell you whatever you want right now to get you to let me go. I can hear his anger and worry in my head and I can't... I can't think straight." she shook her head at Jack... "Let go ..."

He waited a moment longer, glancing off towards the Door, then back towards the battle half-hidden among the trees. Finally, however, he sighed and released her wrist, breaking into a run towards the fight himself. "You owe me for this, Satou. Come on."

Four were left standing, two sprawled across the leaves in swelling pools of blood; only one Ssan had fallen, though several others bore injuries from the battle. As they neared the fight, Satou's presence distracted Lysius, and he glanced up briefly to catch her eyes, earning himself a long gash along his right arm before he returned his focus to his opponent--who fell, severed nearly in two, only seconds later, as Lysius stepped past him towards the next.

Once her wrist was released Satou was in a sprint right alongside Jack. She didn't even pause once she saw Lysius get slashed, after all she'd been fighting alongside the man -with all these jivvins- for years and years now. She knew the drill... but she wasn't used to swords, and so she was fighting akwardly with a weapon too long for her.

She managed to get once good stab into the lower ribs of one of the Ssan, and holler out a warning to a jivvin with yellow ears and black hair before he got stabbed from behind...

She took a moment - when she had a moment- to search out Lysius with her eyes- And she saw him... meters away, fighting... the blood dripping from his arm was enough to make her cringe and lose her focus for a second.

The battle went on...For everyone except for Jack, he quickly realized. Any Ssan he attacked seemed firmly set on utterly avoiding him, rather than pursuing him with the mad energy that they held in battling the Sargtlins. Each Ssan he pursued fled or parried, ducking away and around to instead assault one of the other, already-weak Jivvins. It was baffling, and infuriating, and confusing, and Jack was getting sloppy.

He set his sights on one Ssan--the mottled green with gold eyes--and drove him away from the bronze-eared Jivvin he had been stalking from behind. The Ssan seemed almost bored by his attacks, swaying lazily out of range of each sword thrust, deflecting any swipe that came too near with one of his jagged daggers, but never once retaliating with an offensive attack of his own. He toyed with Jack, in his simple movements mocking and angering him into blindness, setting up the crime he would be known for years into the future.

It was the work of a moment for the trap to play out. Briefly, for only a fraction of a second, the mottled Ssan was nearly back to back with Satou, still, an easy target. Jack thrust forward with his blade, and it struck, sinking deep into the target--but not the target he had anticipated. With unnatural speed the Ssan had avoided the lunge, positioning himself almost casually beside Jack. As the Pirate's sword sunk into Satou's back, the Ssan's hand snapped out to direct Jack's, forcing it and the blade downwards to lengthen the horrible wound.

With a final, perfectly-timed grin for the once-Uuthli, the Ssan ducked and dove beneath his outreached arm, between him and Satou in a full out charge for the enraged Sargtlin glaring his way.

Satou's world stopped.... and as she stared down at the sword protruding from her chest she laughed a second... there was no pain, only confusion... and then the wound lengthened and still there was no pain...

It wasn't until she looked up and saw Lysuis that the pain rushed back to her and her body wracked itself, shaking and causing her even more pain... as she turned to look at the person on the other end of the sword she somehow already knew who it would be...

She smiled at Jack, a pained sad smile... "I understand now... but I never thought that it would be you... All the time... I... just..." He vision was blurring and she was loosing blood at an alarming rate... she fell back into Jack as she lost consciousnes...

The world... her world... fading to black... for the last time.

The world went right on spinning. The battle hadn't ceased, but it had faded and quieted, as if moving far away. For seemingly years Jack was aware of blood dripping down the shaft of his blade and sheer, undeniable terror. And then she spoke, and she fell, and time and noise and movement resumed.

Jack dropped his hold on the blade in favor of grabbing hold of her arm to keep her from falling completely. She was going to die. He was going to die. Lysius was going to kill him. Jack could hear him screaming her name even as he fought. But it was an accident! He had been set up! The Ssan...the Ssan had planned this...

He didn't have the time or mental capacity to question it at the moment. Fear and desperation stirred him, and he could remember only one thing: She was supposed to be in the future. Maybe they could save her there. Maybe they could set things right.

Careful to avoid the sword--who knew what further damage removing it might cause?--he scooped her into his arms, abandoning the fight and heading back up towards the door. The fight continued without him; the few remaining Ssan could have cared less that he was gone. The three Jivvins that still stood were growing weak. Save one, however, who seemed to have found a second wind, who fought as if possessed by the devil himself for a chance to avoid the mottled Ssan he battled and pursue the pair towards the House.

His eyes followed Satou's limp form to the very moment when she vanished into the building. As the door began to close, he finally broke away from the Ssan, only to collapse to the ground just clear of the trees as the door clicked shut and what connection there was was severed.

The Ssan began a slow retreat, one by one vanishing back into the trees to leave the two standing to tend to their wounded.

Many, many years later, Jack stepped through the Past Door with a bleeding Satou in his arms, and was promptly knocked unconscious by a sharp jab from a sword hilt to the back of his skull.