Rewrite

Chapter 2

By Shimegami-chan

w w w . shimegami . com / ichijouji

"Lady Lucca?" Cora laid a hand on the girl's shaking back. "Are you all right? Have we said too much?"

"No...no, I'm fine," Lucca assured them, shifting her glasses to rub at her eyes. "I'm just surprised. This is all happening so fast."

Eileen looked sympathetic, laying a cloak around Lucca's shoulders. "It'll be fine, dear, I'm sure. You're here now, and you're safe. Well...I didn't want to ask this, but do you remember anything that happened since you ran away?"

"Some," Lucca lied. "I remember being alone, walking through the towns and sleeping in the Inns and sometimes in the forests. I met people who became my friends...the girl and the frog that man tried to have captured."

"So, they were your friends. The Chancellor seemed to think they were Mystic terrorists of some sort."

Lucca frowned. "They ran from the guards. I hope they're all right..."

"I'm sure they are, my Lady," Cora said, clasping Lucca's hand in hers. "If they had been taken and held in the Castle, we would know."

"Is that who that guy was? The current Chancellor?" Anger flared up in Lucca despite her panic. "He was so irritating."

Cora and Eileen exchanged glances. "As we said before, Lady, we did not know you before. But the entire castle has heard of of your quarrels with the Chancellor."

"Oh, great." They seemed to be having wonderful luck with the Guardian Chancellors thus far. Save for the one that was her distant ancestor (Lucca hoped he wasn't the one who had been impersonated by Yakra in 600 A.D., but she had never found out his name) every one she had met had been trouble.

Anyway, that isn't the same guy that dragged Crono off to trial. Whatever's happened to this timeline has REALLY screwed it up. Come to think of it...

"Hey...where's my mom?" Lucca asked, a glimmer of hope sparking in her heart. Without a mechanic-obssessed Taban on the loose, it was entirely possible that she was completely healthy in this timeline.

Eileen looked surprised. "Your mother had thought you wouldn't want to see her, dear. She's upstairs."

"Wouldn't want to? Why?" Lucca rose, looking around the room at the sparsely-decorated walls. Some of her love for gadgets had clearly carried into the alter-Lucca's world, as a desk was piled high with books and tools, magnifying glasses and small mechanical contraptions. Blueprints were hung on the stone walls above the desk.

"It seems you didn't always get along," Cora said gently. "You and she were very different."

Well, of course...Mom never liked us fooling around with machines. Especially after her accident...but I learned how they worked so that could never happen again...

Lucca shook her head. "I want to see her. Is that all right?"

"I don't see why not," Eileen replied, pulling the cloak tighter around Lucca's shoulders. "You're not a prisoner here, you know."

No, I'm just being made to feel like one, Lucca thought bitterly. But out loud she forced a tone of excitement. "Okay, lead the way!"

She followed Eileen down the stairs of the east tower and across the Great Hall to the western tower of the castle, where the King's room had been in the sixth century. The east tower always seemed to belong to the female ruler or heir, Lucca noted. She filed this information away for future reference.

Cora held the thick wooden door open as Eileen stepped into the room first, leaving Lucca standing in the hall, fidgeting. She had been listening intently, watching every window for a sign of Epoch departing this era, but if Frog and Marle had escaped in the time machine they had done so discreetly enough that Lucca had missed the telltale crackle of electricity in the air. She didn't like not knowing what was going on, or really, much about paradoxes at all. Time travel was not logical.

Lucca hated that.

"You can come in now, Lucca, dear." Eileen beckoned from the door and Lucca stepped forward, unsure of what to expect. Did she hate her mother in this timeline? Were her mother's legs all right, or might some other horrendous thing have happened in that accident's place? Lucca felt a little ill.

The woman in the King's room looked at Lucca anxiously, hopefully. "Lucca..."

"Mom...?" Lucca whispered. The desire to see Lara standing was washed away by the woman's green-eyed gaze and hesitant smile. She was young, healthy, and regal. She was beautiful.

But she was not Lara.

"Ayla go with! Climb," Ayla mimed climbing on an invisible rope, "take Lucca, and escape! Very quiet!"

"The odds of breaking into the castle undetected are very low," Robo 's optical sensors dimmed slightly. "Lucca will surely be under very heavy guard. I want to help, but I would be of no use on this mission."

"It's too difficult to disguise you anyway, Robo. I'm sure Lucca would understand," Marle assured him.

"Ayla go! Ayla can save, easy." The prehistoric woman grinned manically. "Crono stay here with Robo. We come back."

"..." Crono looked at the ground, seemingly lost in thought.

Marle hugged him. "I know she's your best friend. But we'll save her, we promise."

"Time is passing in 1000 A.D. even as you speak," Gaspar advised.

"Right!" Marle let go of Chrono and ran to the stairway, aware of Ayla's loping gait less than a foot behind. The young princess leapt into the front seat feetfirst, her hands settling naturally on Epoch's many levers. "Are we ready?"

"Go Epoch!" Ayla shouted. Marle grinned - traveling with Ayla was always fun. She brought the time machine to life and directed it to 1000 A.D., holding down the ignition button. The ship rose and took flight, gently crackling as eras flowed around it, coming to rest in the dimly-lit sky.

Night was just beginning to fall as Marle gently set Epoch down under the cover of the Forest. The two party members waited in silence momentarily within the cockpit, Ayla twitching in excitement.

Fianlly, Marle pressed the button to release the hatch, and as the ship hissed the boarding platform lowered slowly to the ground. Ayla leapt from the platform as soon as there was space and sat cross-legged on the grass, waiting for it to deliver her companion.

Marle slung a coil of rope over her shoulder and pressed the button to raise the platform back into Epoch's body. "My room is in this tower. We'll use this to get up there," she told Ayla. "Follow me."

The cavewoman eyed the rope in her hands with a quizzical look, as if to say, what is that supposed to be for? Then, grinning, she turned and indicated with her thumb that Marle should climb on her back.

Marle, immediately apprehensive (Ayla's smile did very little to reassure her of good intent), took a step back. "What for?"

"Marle get on," Ayla told her bossily. "Ayla strong, we climb up together."

The young princess slowly obliged, hoping what Ayla really meant was "climb together to a spot where we can tie the rope." She dropped the coil onto the grass, however, when Ayla immediately began moving directly up the wall. Marle had to muffle a screech. "What are you doing? "

"Shh. Quiet," Ayla instructed as they passed by a window. She was moving alarmingly fast and Marle was forced to shut her eyes tightly and cling to the warrior woman's back. "Where we go?"

"Uhh...it's on the top floor. Should be the only window," Marle hissed, not opening her eyes. Ayla grunted in reply and kept moving.

What was I thinking, letting her carry me up here? whined Marle's conscience, but she had to admit, it was a pretty efficient way to travel.

Frog marvelled at the ease in which he was now able to move among the townspeople of Porre. In the Middle Ages, between the threat of the Frog King and the Mystic revolution, a being such as he was often considered a monster and quickly expelled from inns and even towns. It was something he'd become accustomed to in the years since acquiring his frog form, when hiding in the nearby woods, and disguising himself as he moved among the people of this very village - the town from whence both he and Cyrus had come.

It had not changed so significantly in the 400 years since he had left it, Frog thought.

Of course, he had seen this era's version of Porre in previous travels with Crono, but never had there been time to stop and meet people, or observe the ruins of remnants of the past. Rather than bothering, the sight of the occasional Mystic villager (not all of them occupied Medina, it seemed) comforted him. He felt bold enough to draw back his hood as he strode into a pub, settling wearily on one of the stools.

The bartender was brisk and pleasant. "What can I get you, friend?"

"Ale, if it be no trouble."

The man bustled away and returned a moment later with a large tankard, setting it down gently in front of Frog. "Give me a shout if y'need more."

"My thanks."

Frog's lithe body seemed almost to deflate as he sat, finally recognizing how seized it had become over the last day, running and hopping non-stop. The party had not rested since they had left Choras, where the Northern Ruins of this era had been haunted by Cyrus' ghost. Frog felt sick and weary at the thought, grateful that he had been laid to rest in his own time.

He hoped, if nothing else, that Cyrus still slept peacefully in this timeline too.

A flash of auburn caught Frog's wide eyes. He turned and saw a woman of medium height and a slim build, nervously watching him as he sipped at the ale. The woman was beautiful and he felt a slight twinge in his heart, in the same fashion he felt when he looked upon Queen Leene.

She looked like the Queen, from her reddish-blond hair to her hesitant smile, which Frog returned graciously. He could not see her eyes from across the room, but he wondered if they were green, too.