Destined to Be Together

Part One

          Infalna ducked into the first building she came to and slammed the door shut behind her.  She leaned back against it, her chest heaving as she fought to catch her breath.

“Can I help you, Miss?”

Infalna jumped as the Innkeeper spoke and quickly diverted her eyes, “Yes, I need a place to stay?”

The Innkeeper arched an eyebrow, “Well, this is an Inn … as long as you have gil, we can talk a place to stay, if not…”

Infalna’s heart sank, “I don’t have very much money…”

The man narrowed his eyes, “Well, let’s just see how much you have.”  He moved behind the counter and checked his book.

Infalna pulled her money purse out of her robes; “Do I have to sign the book?”

The Innkeeper arched his eyebrows again, “You in trouble, Miss?”

She closed her eyes and nodded.

The man took a step back to look the girl over; she had brown hair pulled tight into a ponytail, flowing down her back and hitting her at the knees.  She wore a dark brown robe with a druid-style hood, which was pushed back.  The edge of a long, dark magenta dress peeked out from beneath the robe, and the tips of brown combat boots showed.  She was purposely looking down and away so that he couldn’t see her face properly, but he could tell her face was young and beautiful.

She was tall and slender, but still he dwarfed her from his height of 6 feet, 9 inches.  His face was almost hidden by a dark scratchy beard.  He knew he resembled a big scary fur trapper, reminding himself to soften his deep voice and his fierce expression so as not to scare her.

He leaned forward on the counter, glancing around to make sure all of his other guests were upstairs, “You can’t be more then sixteen, what kind of trouble are you in?”

Infalna kept her eyes lowered and whispered, “A lot of trouble, and I’m twenty-two.”

The man lowered his voice, “How much is a lot of trouble?”

She turned her head slightly, giving him part of her profile, and glanced back at the door, “I’m being chased by Shinra, I have to hide, please.”

The Innkeeper was taken aback, this young woman was being chased by the most powerful army in the world, “But why?” he blurted out.

She looked up into his eyes and he gasped.  Her eyes were bright, no brilliant; no… there was only one word to describe it.  Her eyes were glowing, sea foam green.  They were shocking, almost enough to give a man a heart attack.  But they weren’t scary; they were gorgeous, adding on to her already angelic beauty, making her seem almost too breathtakingly attractive to be real.

She lowered her eyes quickly when she saw the surprise on his face, “Because I’m Special… Sir, don’t let them get me.”

The Innkeeper was struck stupid for a moment, “Special… yes, Special…”

He had no love for Shinra, he had once lived in Midgar before they’d built that stupid plate over the lower city that blocked out the sun and sky.  He’d moved to Icicle Inn to get away from the city smog and live in the fresh, albeit, cold, air.

“Yes, I have a place you can hide, there’s a shed out back where my guests put their ski’s and snowboards, there’s a small space heater so the boards can defrost, but you’ll need something thicker then that frock.”

She looked up at him again, this time, a slight smile graced her lips and he was once again struck by her looks, “Thank you, thank you so much Mr.--”

He stepped out from behind the counter, “Darrell Wallace.  Just call me Darry, everyone around here does.”

“Infalna,” she said, following him through a door near the stairs into a room full of blankets and pillowcases, it also had a back door leading into the yard.

“This is my old coat, I had to buy a thicker one for myself for when I go out to do the handyman chores.  But it should keep you warm enough along with your robes.”

He handed her a large blue overcoat.  Infalna slipped it on over her robes and it nearly swallowed her, the collar hiding most of her face on both sides.  She pulled the hood of the robe over her head, and then the coat hood over that.  She looked like a dark blue blob of shadows.  Darry opened the back door and led her out into the night; the cold dark snow lay untouched from the evening’s last downfall of flurries.

The shed was made of old logs from trees that had fallen over in past snowstorms.  It had weather stripping along the single window and the door, but it still gave off the impression that it was colder on the inside then it was outside.

Darry unlocked the door and ushered her inside, “The space heater’s behind the rack of snowboards, wait back there for a little bit while I figure out what to do with you.  Only I have the key to the padlock, so when the door opens, it’ll just be me.”

A dark van drove up and stopped in front of the Inn , a couple men in uniforms got out and headed for the front door.

Infalna’s brilliant eyes widened in fear and she disappeared into the shadows behind the snowboards.  Darry closed the shed door, making double sure the lock clicked, and entered the Inn through the back door just as the bell on the desk rang.

The two soldiers stood in front of the counter when Darry appeared in the doorway of the linen pantry.  He filled the entire doorway and did his best to make himself look even bigger.  He was not going to let a couple of Shinra soldiers push him around, who cares if they were part of a powerful army, there were only two of them and Darry had a double barrel shot gun behind his counter, “Can I help you boys.”

Boys they certainly were, they couldn’t have been more then twenty either.  The two soldiers looked at him, startled, and he had to work at not smiling, they were intimidated, good.

Darry crossed the floor to be behind the counter and leaned back against the wall, “We have only two rooms full, the rest are empty, if you’re interested.”

The soldiers looked at each other.  The one on the left, the one he instinctively labeled Soldier #1, jerked his head in Darry’s direction and the one on the right turned back to the counter, “We’re looking for a girl.”

Darry’s eyebrows shot up in amusement, “Well, in Icicle Inn we don’t have anything like that, but I know when I was last in Midgar there was a place called the Honeybee Inn.  They might be able to help you, but I can’t run that sort of business in a small town like this.”

The two soldiers looked at each other again, this time in confusion.  Then they seemed to get what Darry said and began laughing.

“No,” said the one on the right, labeled Soldier #2, “We’re looking for a girl for a different reason, we’re going to take her into custody, then to Professor Gast.”

Darry nodded, “Oh, I see… a girl to arrest.  Why?  What did she do, kill someone?”

“Not that it’s any of your business,” said Soldier #2, “but she’s wanted for scientific experiments, see, this girl is sort of… Special.”

Special, that was the word the young woman had used; she really was being chased.  Darry nodded, “Special, really?  That’s not so surprising, I’ve never met a girl that wasn’t.”

The two soldiers looked at each other again.  “You don’t understand,” said #2, “she’s the key to the Promised Land.”

Darry burst out laughing, “Ha!  That’s a good one, boy, the Promised Land, that’s just a fairy tale!”

“No,” argued Soldier #2, “it’s not, that girl’s the last Cetra and she’s gonna lead Proffessor Gast to the—OW!”

Soldier #1 elbowed the second one in the ribs.

The second soldier doubled over and Soldier #1 looked at Darry, his eyes cold, “Have you seen a girl of about twenty wearing a pink dress with long brown hair?”

“Sure,” said Darry, “all the time, pink is what a lot of girls wear, and a lot of them have brown hair.”

“No, this girl has a difference, a major difference, she has eyes so green you can see the lifestream in them.  You can see the planet in them, you can see everything in her eyes…”

It was obvious that they had actually been close enough to catching her that they didn’t want to fail their mission.  His description of her eyes made Darry remember looking into them and he caught his breath.  The Inn was silent for a few moments before Darry broke it, “Nope, haven’t seen any girl like that, I’m sure I would remember her if her eyes look anything like you describe.”

Soldier #1 studied him skeptically, “She may have been wearing a dark brown robe, with a hood covering her hair and face, have you seen anyone like that, hiding around the buildings?”

Darry pretended to think for a moment, “Now that you mention it, I think I did see someone huddled in a brown coat or something heading out down the slopes.  Yeah, I remember it now, some guy yelled out that whoever it was should get a snowboard first, but whoever it was ignored him.  I think it was a girl, just by the way the person walked, she was wearing big brown combat boots.”

Soldier #2, who had gotten his breath, looked with wide eyes to his partner and Darry smiled, they hadn’t mentioned the boots, it helped support his story, “Did that help you boys any?”

The first soldier smiled bitterly, “You wouldn’t be hiding her around here, would you?”

Darry narrowed his eyes at the man, “Why no, I wouldn’t, I’ve told you all I know about the matter, if that person was her, she’s probably frozen to death by now in the mountains.  If you don’t believe me, search the place, if not, I’m going to have to ask you boys to leave, I’ve got chores to do.”

Soldier #1 opened his mouth to say something rude, but changed his mind, “No, we don’t need to search the place, thank you, we’ll leave you to your chores.”

They walked out the front door and got into their truck.  Darry made sure they were far down the street before going to get his coat out of the linen pantry.

Infalna cuddled close to the small space heater, trying to warm her hands.  They’d found her, but how?  She’d never stayed in one place long enough to be traced, they’d followed her across so many continents, from Midgar to Junon, from Junon to Costa Del Sol, from Costa Del Sol to Corel.  She’d stayed in Corel for a while, it had been a small community, no reactor, no Shinra.  Then Infalna had come across a mako fountain, mako in its natural form, and she’d gotten out of there quick.  Where there was mako, Shinra would soon be there.

Wutei had been nice, it was big, but secluded, and the people had been nice as well.  She’d gotten a job at the Materia shop, which was where she’d gotten the money to pay for the boat ticket to Bone Village .  There had been so much Materia, it had been a good job, then the wars had started, and she’d left.  The boat ticket had taken most of her savings, so by the time she’d stumbled into Icicle Inn, she’d been pretty much broke.

And imagine her surprise when she’d been in Bone Village for only an hour, then Shinra boats docked on the beach.  She’d run for her life, hiking over the snowy mountains all by herself, walking aimlessly till she happened to notice the lights of Icicle Inn.  Then she’d run into the first building she saw, and now look at her, locked in a shed, hiding behind a bunch of snowboards trying to thaw her frozen fingers with a space heater.

She knew all about Professor Gast, she’d never met him before, and she didn’t want to.  She’d always gotten away before they could get her to him.  He was the head of the Science/Research program for Shinra, and he wanted to do experiments on her.  Infalna shivered, half from fear, half from cold.  They’d known about her since she was ten years old, when one of the men in the blue suits had noticed her eyes while she played in the front yard of the orphanage.  Of course, it wasn’t until she was eighteen that they really started bothering her.  That had been when they’d actually started the Science program in Shinra.

Well, they had always had a Science program, it just never had any funding, but when the attempt to put a man in space blew up in their faces, they switched the funding from the Space program to the Science program.  Then Professor Gast was put in charge and he wanted Infalna for testing.

There was a sound of someone turning a key in the padlock and she quickly ducked out of sight.  Darry filled the doorway in his menacing manner, “Come out now, you don’t have to hide, they’re gone.”

Infalna stood up and smoothed back her hair; “I have to run then.”

Darry smiled, “Not in this cold, you’d freeze, even with that big coat.  No, you better stay the night in one of my spare rooms, come on.”

Back at the desk, Darry pulled out his guest book and quickly wrote down three guys names all registered for the same room, “See, now if they demand to see my book, I can say that there’s three snowboard bum kids sleeping cause they stayed up all night long partying.”

The corner of Infalna’s mouth twitched, “Are you accustomed to hiding escaped prisoners?”

Darry turned away from her and took all of the keys down from the rack for room four, “No, I just know how to disappear if I need to.”

She followed him up the silent stairs to the second floor.  There was a hallway with six doors, two of them had Do Not Disturb signs hanging on the knobs.

Darry unlocked number four and held all three keys out to her, “Only those two rooms are occupied.  These are the only keys that unlock this door, no one, not even me, can unlock it, however, if you’re thinking of killing yourself, I can kick the door in, so don’t even think about it.”

Infalna nodded slowly, not mentioning that if she died, she couldn’t pass on what made her so Special.  She took the keys and went into the room.

“Don’t forget to lock the door after I’m gone, I’ll come up in the morning and see if you want food, okay?”

Infalna nodded again, looking around the room.

“I’m gonna ask you something, you don’t have to answer me, just don’t test my patience by lying to me.”

Infalna turned back to give him her full attention.

“Are you a Cetra?”

She blinked at him for a moment; “Do you know what a Cetra is?”

Darry shook his head; “It’s something the soldiers called you.”

Infalna nodded, “Yes, they’ve said that to me every time they’ve caught up to me.  Honestly, I don’t know what it means either.”

Darry smiled, “But are you one?”

Infalna shook her head, “I don’t know that either, they seem to think I am.”

Darry nodded. “Fair enough, I’ll let you get some sleep, see you in the morning.”

Of course, Infalna knew quite a lot, especially from her dreams lately, but she did want to answer any more questions.

Infalna locked the door after he left and went to the window.  She could see the Materia shop, the Weapon shop, Item shop, ski resort, a few houses… there was another building closest to the mountains.  It had a gabled roof and hardly any windows.  It looked rather strange separated from the rest of the town by the small road that led down the snowboard hill.

She closed the heavy drapes and turned out the light.  There were three beds all in a row; she chose the one farthest from the door and closest to the bathroom, just in case.

Bright and early the next morning, Darry was setting up a small breakfast on a tray when a man walked into the Inn .  He was dressed in the average snow parka and jeans, customary for people walking around Icicle Inn.  The service bell rang and Darry poked is head out the door of his small kitchen, “Can I help you?”

The man pushed back his hood and unzipped his coat, “Yes, I believe you can.”

He was in his late twenties and looked accustomed to long hours of pouring over books, like a college professor.  His hair was dark brown and desperately in need of a trim, the bangs beginning to fall into his eyes, making him look younger. He had a pair of wire rim glasses dangling from his shirt collar, as if to say that he forgot where they were all the time.

Darry brought the tray out of the kitchen and set it on the counter, “Okay, what can I do for you?”

The man glanced at the numbered card on the tray, four.  He smiled honestly at Darry, “My name is Jonathan Gast, I’d like a room.”

Darry almost choked on his tongue; “You’re Professor Gast?”

Gast’s smile widened, “Heard of me?”

Darry nodded, “Yeah, two soldiers came looking for a girl you want.  They mentioned your name.”

Gast rolled his eyes, “Yes, the younger ones do have a tendency to talk too much.  May I sign the book, please?”

Darry got a hold of himself, “Yeah, sure.”  Then thought to himself silently, ‘Probably wants to see who checked in recently.’

Gast signed the book and then glanced at the other names, “I see you got a party of guys yesterday.  Partied all night, didn’t they?”

Darry smiled and nodded, “Yeah, you know kids, they’ll probably wake up around 12 and go snowboarding all afternoon.  They ordered breakfast last night, I don’t think they’ll get it till after it’s cold.”

Gast motioned to the numbered card on the tray, “That’s not a lot of food for three guys.”

Darry looked down at the tray, “Ah… no, it isn’t…”

Gast leaned against the counter, “Look, I know you don’t want to give her up, she’s really Special, but you don’t know what it could mean if I had the chance to talk to her.”

Darry picked up the tray, “No, you can’t have her, I won’t let you, she’s not some animal for you to experiment on.  I know all about what the Science/Research program at Shinra has been trying to set up.  I used to live in Midgar too.”

Gast shook his head, “I believe you’re talking about my colleague, Professor Hojo.  He likes animal experimentation, I’m focusing my research on the girl, I need her to help me.”

“Help you?”

“Yes, I want to talk to her, I want her to tell me what the planet says to her.”

Darry set the tray back down slowly.

Gast smiled, “Look, you don’t have to give her to me, but I just want to talk with her.  That’s all I want.  No experiments, I wouldn’t risk her life, she’s the last one of her kind.”

“You say that like she’s some sort of animal on the brink of extinction.”

Gast nodded, “In a way she is.  If she dies without having children, her kind will be extinct.”

Darry picked up the tray and headed for the stairs.  Gast spoke urgently from behind him, “Please, she’s crucial to the survival of the planet.  If she’s unhappy with the testing, she can leave, you can see to that.  My lab is in Icicle Inn.  This is a sight of great planetary power, I need her to be here to interpret the planet for me.”

Darry was silent for a few moments.  His shoulders shrank as he sighed, “She’s going to hate me for this, come on.”

Infalna opened her eyes at the sound of footsteps coming down the hall.  She sat up and stretched, throwing back the covers and tried to smooth her dress.

Darry knocked on the door, “Open up, breakfast.”

Infalna crossed the room and opened the door.  Darry filled the doorway in his natural stance, holding a tray of food.  She smiled and took it, “Thank you, this looks wonderful.”

Darry stepped into the room but left the door opened, “Now honey, do you know why those men want you?”

Infalna sat down on the first bed and took a bite of toast; “They want to do tests on me.”

“Did they say what kinds of tests?”

Infalna nodded, “Something about planet interpreting.”

Darry nodded, good, it would be easier if she knew as much as him, “And does that sound painful?”

Infalna shook her head, “I don’t know what it means, just because I can hear the planet doesn’t mean I understand it, they just assume I hear it and understand what it says.”

Darry glanced at the open door; “Can you understand the planet?”

Infalna looked up in alarm, “Oh no.”

Darry looked around, “What?”

Infalna stood slowly, setting the tray down on the bed and reached for her robes, “They’re here, aren’t they?”

Darry took a step toward her, “I just think it’s best for you to go with him, everything will be all right—”

“No!” Infalna screamed and ran for the door.

Professor Gast stepped in the doorframe, blocking her only exit, “Hello, Infalna.”

Infalna dropped her shoulder and ran strait into him, but he was faster.  He caught her around the waist and lifted her off of the ground, “Infalna, you must calm down, or I’ll have to sedate you.”

Darry towered over him, “No needles, you said talking. Sedating wasn’t in the deal.”

Gast smiled, “I’m not going to knock her out, just calm her down, it’s not painful, and that’s only if she doesn’t stop fighting.”

Darry looked at Infalna, her hair was messed from sleep, her cheeks were red from fighting, she looked tired and weak, “Please honey, calm down, it’ll be okay.”

Infalna twisted to look him in the face, her beautiful eyes now narrowed into slits of pure loathing, “What do you know about anything, I’ve been running for four years only to be caught because of you.”

Darry winced, she hated him now, the most beautiful and innocent creature in the world was filled with hate, hate of Shinra, hate of Professor Gast, but mostly, hate for him, for selling her out.  He held one of his giant hands out to her and then dropped it, “I’m sorry, but maybe it’s time you stopped running.”

“That wasn’t for you to decide.”  Infalna wriggled in Professor Gast’s arms, “Can you please put me down, I promise not to run.”

He set her on the floor and she smoothed her wrinkled dress and pushed her hair back from her eyes, “Let’s go then.”

Gast nodded his head to her, “I’m Professor—”

“Gast,” Infalna finished for him, “yes, I know all about you too.  How can a man so young waste his life ruining mine?”

Gast stared at her, “I don’t find the preservation of the planet a waste, and as for ruining your life, you’re the one that ran.”

Infalna stalked down the hall with him on her heels.  Darry sank to his knees on the floor of her room and covered his face with both hands.

Onward to Part 2!!

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