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It was a quiet, peaceful night. The world around the group of mismatched
adventurers was silent, and it seemed like they would get a peaceful night’s
sleep for once.
Or so they thought...
With scarcely a warning, the summoner from Mizuho sat bolt upright in her
bedroll. Her face twisted into a snarl.
“Will you all PLEASE shut up?!” Sheena roared into the night sky, driving
several of the others to scramble upright – albeit drowsily – and grab
frantically at their weapons.
“Huh? What? What’s going on?” Lloyd demanded, his hand resting on one of his
swords. He glanced towards Sheena inquisitively.
The black-haired ninja blinked a few times, looking around abruptly. Her
cheeks reddened slightly. “Um... oops?”
Several of the travellers almost immediately lost interest when they saw it
was nothing urgent, and they quickly returned to their bedrolls. Zelos, on the
other hand, groaned slightly and rolled over to face Sheena. “Seriously, my
voluptuous hunny, did you really have to wake us all up just to say oops?”
Normally this would evoke a glare and an insult war from her, but this
situation wasn’t quite normal. Instead, she just continued to look abashed and
shook her head to clear it. “Sorry... it’s... well, it’s nothing much.”
“Sheena,” Raine began in her lecturing tone, “you didn’t just yell out into
the night and wake us all up for ‘nothing’.”
“Raine’s right,” Lloyd said sleepily. “What happened? What was it?”
“...it was the Summon Spirits,” Sheena murmured, turning redder. “They were
really bugging me, and said some... things.”
“...are you saying you had a nightmare?” Zelos said incredulously, turning
back to her again. “You woke us all up for that? Jeez, Sheena...”
“That’s not it,” Sheena snapped at him.
“Then what was it?”
“It was the Summon Spirits,” she insisted again.
“What do you mean by that?” Lloyd asked. In the meantime, Raine perked up
slightly. Any new opportunity to learn something new was one that she would
hurriedly take up, especially when pertaining to the Spirits.
“...well...” Sheena hesitated, “it’s a bit like a side effect of having
formed pacts with the Summon Spirits. Obviously the Spirits have lives of their
own, otherwise they’d still be with Mithos and the seals would have been
unoccupied. So even though I’ve formed pacts with them, they’re still waiting
until I call them.”
Zelos gestured for her to go on, his eternally cheerful expression intrigued
for once.
“I can summon them by calling them, and they use me as a kind of beacon for
them to hone in on. However, just like they can hear me... now I can hear them.
And since I’ve made pacts with most of them, they use me as a communication
device.”
“So... you’re saying that you can hear them talking to each other?” Lloyd
said curiously.
“Yeah,” Sheena nodded. “But strangely enough, I don’t often hear them all the
time. Sometimes I can hear them during the day, but I can normally block them
out to a degree. When I’m asleep, however... well, they pretty much invade my
dreams with their small talk between one another. Tonight, they were really
active, and so this happened.”
“Fascinating!” Raine declared. “Who would have guessed that you’d have this
side effect because of your summoning abilities?”
Lloyd and Zelos, at this point, began to edge away from the frenzied
half-elf. Their expressions clearly stated that Sheena was on her own now.
“Are there any major discrepancies about what’s being said?” Raine continued.
“Do you tend to hear some louder than others? Are their patterns between who
they talk to? Can you still not understand Volt? Do you only...”
“Raine!” Sheena said, interrupting her. “It’s the middle of the night... I’m
really not in the mood for answering so many questions.”
“Oh, of course. Forgive me.” Raine looked abashed... but only slightly. “Do
you think I could inquire once we’re all properly awake later today?”
“I guess so...” Sheena murmured.
“Excellent!” the healer said with an almost child-like grin. “Well then, we
should try to get back to sleep.”
Sheena nodded and matched actions to words, sighing slightly. She hoped
desperately that the Spirits would keep their voices – and accusations – quiet
this time...
- - - - -
The next morning, after a hurried breakfast and a long inquisition conducted
by Raine, the group was gathering their things and preparing for another day’s
travel. Lloyd, on the other hand, had something on his mind.
“Hey Sheena,” he said quietly to her, “last night you said that the Spirits
were bugging you and saying ‘things’. What kind of things were they?”
Sheena glanced towards the Chosen of Tethe’alla for a split second, even
though he was facing the other direction, before turning her attention to Lloyd.
“Oh, nothing really...”
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