#farona

Lord Knight Farona for @amissapanda as a belated birthday gift because I missed the celebration train (curse you thesis paper) T_T!! I hope you had a wonderful one and I look forward to hearing and seeing more of your lovely RO OCs, Manda! ❤

Granted, he had come close to achieving it once. Yune had taken a pierce in the shoulder that may or may not have missed grazing the arm of the unprepared knight. But it was hardly shielding her from a killing blow and his wound was healed relatively easily. Keeping her from harm was something that he always did his best to accomplish in any situation, yet when the trio had been ambushed on the lowest level beneath Geffen tower, even he had not been fully prepared for what was in store...

Choruses of ghostly whinnies were the first and last warning before Yune, Farona, and Ryshun found themselves shrouded in thick mist. The rest of the monsters they had been attending to seemed to vanish--or perhaps retreat. And out of those heavy clouds, flanked by a series of spectral nightmares... he appeared.

Yune watched himself form out of the mist, wearing the same sunglasses and bunny ears and even sporting the same kind of grin he wore on his lips day to day.

Doppelganger.

The high priest's jaw clenched. He should have seen this coming. Out of the three of them, the shape-shifting monster would have no doubt chosen the strongest and biggest threat on the team to copy the form of. His companions probably did not know enough about the boss monster to realize that fact, but this creature now posed a great threat---he had Yune's raw strength and power at his disposal. Those were attributes to his demi-human abilities that his current party members knew nothing about. The only stark difference was the fact that his mirror image was also wielding a large, deadly-looking sword.

No one realized the true danger here except for him. And while the priest could care less about the stupid assassin, Farona's confusion and uncertainty over what was happening was making a strange feeling of dread form in the pit of his stomach.

She looked reluctant to fight. Fierce, headstrong, impulsive Farona was barely keeping her hand on the hilt of her sword, much less preparing to attack.

"Don't be fooled!" he shouted, his voice carrying through the underground area. "It's Doppelganger! Disarm him!"

Ryshun seemed to take the cue, going into cloak mode in some hopes of taking the monster by surprise. However, the knightress was still hesitating. Even as he blessed her and increased her agility and used every skill that he had to aid her into gaining the confidence to act, the only step that she took was one in the backwards direction.

With the outstretch of a hand, his carbon copy sent a wordless signal for all five of his nightmares to charge at Yune, obscuring the knightress from his view briefly as he was forced to take his attention to the horde. But no sooner did he take care of three of the rather weak spectral horses with a few holy light spells before a fresh dozen was suddenly galloping in to join them.

He could only catch glimpses from beyond the fiery, purple bodies. Doppelganger, completely ignoring the swipes that the assassin was trying to take at him with katar weapons in-between his vanishing, had gone straight after Farona.

There was a loud clash of steel on steel---she must have finally drawn her weapon, at least. But Yune still had a bad feeling. Farona was always swayed by emotion and unstable physically when her emotions were unstable. The sight of someone she considered an ally viciously attacking her would teeter her balance to the point of dumping her straight off of the deep end.

And that thing was using his face to do it.

Yune growled in frustration as he disintegrated a few more of the nightmares---only for even more to replace them. He could have obliterated everything here with ease if he unleashed his true inhuman powers, but he stubbornly held back, refusing to tarnish and throw away everything that he had been working toward so far.

He could not reveal himself at this time. It was too early.

The clangs of sword against sword filled the air, but the volley of the noises was off-beat from a proper sword duel---as though one party was only defending against the other ruthlessly assaulting them.

"You must attack it!" he yelled forcefully, seeing a flutter of red hair somewhere in the gaps. "Doppelganger is aggressive and will not back down! You have to overpower it!"

But even as he spoke those words, the feeling of dread only expanded further. If it came down to a battle between himself and the knightress, he already knew who would overpower the other. The difference in their strength, even on the inhuman side of it, was like night and day.

The only one who could strike down this Doppelganger successfully was himself.

"Y---Yune! Stop!" her wavering voice cried out.

The high priest's eyes widened from behind his sunglasses. It was as he thought. She still had not been able to differentiate the image of him attacking her from his real self.

And then, he heard it. With a resounding clang and clatter, a blade had hit the ground. And his eyes confirmed what he already realized, spotting the glimpse of silver---Farona's claymore.

She was defenseless.

Yune grit his teeth. He was going to have no choice---he had to get to her, dammit! That idiot friend of hers clearly wasn't doing anything to help. He would think of a lie to cover for himself later---plans could be changed. All that mattered now, was---!

With a burst of fiery energy, the demon within scraped the surface long enough for nightmares surrounding him to all but explode in wisps of bluish-purple flame. His path and vision now clear, he immediately lunged in her direction---

But Doppelganger was already in the process of lunging upon her himself---currently masquerading as the identical twin of the high priest---a sword arched overhead, aimed to mercilessly cleave the stunned, weaponless woman's skull in two.

Yune's mouth fell open. He would be too late---just like when he thought he had lost her in the facility so many years prior, she was again on cusp of death, right before his eyes---

And then, out of thin air, the assassin materialized, grabbing Farona around the middle just as the sword sliced down where she had been standing and tackling both of their bodies to the ground a short distance away. They rolled several times in the ancient dirt before they came to a stop.

Doppelganger was already regaining his balance and preparing to pursue, but with the attention of his party currently off of him, Yune tapped into his true abilities---just long enough to grab Farona's fallen fire claymore and drive it through the unsuspecting back of his mirror image.

The monster briefly turned into the image of a blond male swordsman before he vanished, defeated, and the sword, no longer having a body to hold it up, toppled and clanked with a dull noise on the ground. A few treasures lay scattered about, but the high priest took no notice of them.

His eyes were glued to the display nearby, where Farona was holding onto Ryshun for dear life in their prone position, her head tucked protectively beneath his. There were murmurs of something---likely the assassin reassuring her that it was over.

Perhaps a normal person in his position would have felt grateful or relieved. But upon seeing the way her trembling fingers clung to the fabric of Ryshun's attire, Yune's eyes only narrowed sharply from behind the cover of his sunglasses.

An ugly, frothing feeling of utter detestation filled him from the inside out.

Not only did the damn assassin just happen to show up at the right moment to play hero, but he saved her from a being that, at that point in time, looked exactly like Yune.

Remembering that time still made a shot of something hot burn through his veins and fester deep in his tainted blood. Yune gripped at the white fabric covering his arms, baring his teeth. He hoisted to his feet in a billow of robes and turned to head for the stream nearby. He needed to cool down. A splash of water on the face should do it.

...How infuriating.

Why were his own carefully-controlled and easily-dismissed emotions so unpredictable when she was involved?

He did not understand it as a child and even after such a long period of time traveling with her and learning countless things about her as an adult, he still did not. And one of the most frustrating things to him had always been not having the knowledge to explain or figure something out that he needed to know. Yune couldn't build solid plans around something---or someone---that he could not accurately predict.

And being unable to predict himself was one of the most dangerous things of all.

He had her now. He had a way to keep her wrapped around his finger.

But strangely, it was not enough.

Yune removed his gloves as he settled down on his knees at the stream and reached into the quiet waters, cupping his joined hands beneath the surface, gathering enough to fill them--

It was never enough.

He splashed his face with the water, drenching his bangs with a flood of the cool liquid--

It would never be enough.

The droplets streamed every which way down his features, dripping from locks of wet hair and dropping into the water below. Small ripples obscured and temporarily altered the moonlit image of him that looked back up at him from in the calm waters.

Then, so suddenly that he almost thought it to be a mirage, another image appeared alongside his.

"Yune?"

Farona's reflection stood at the side of his, her voice hovering over his right shoulder. Even in the scant amount of light from the moon, her ocean-colored eyes were bright and shining.

Yune reached down to touch her image in the water, watching as the tiny ripples rolled over her frame in soft waves. When the waters stilled, she remained in place beside his reflection, ears perked and eyes lit from within by that special something he never could decipher.

Farona never belonged on his chessboard from the beginning.