Alormai Chapter Eleven
I dont usually post chapters of Alormai in my lj, I'm just posting this one here for analine's sake. ^_^ I suggest that if you havent read any previous chapters of this, dont start with this one, as you'll be really confused. But if you're interested, leave me a comment and I'll happily email the earlier chapters to you. ^_^
~*Chapter Eleven*~
“Look for yourself.” Sage said simply, casually handing Tundra an ashen piece of parchment. Tundra glared at him suspiciously for a brief moment, as if her guardian had insisted that the paper he had been clutching tightly for the last half hour had held the answers to the seven wonders of the world upon it, before snatching it quickly from his sweaty grasp. Her artic eyes swiftly took in the words written in the elegant crimson ink that only Pisces seemed to own before gasping and reading it over again. “S-Sage!” she exclaimed, still skimming over the General’s letter. “What, can’t believe it? I didn’t either at first, read it again.” her guardian sighed. Tundra peered at him over the crinkled parchment for a second before turning her confused gaze to the memorandum once again, this time careful to take in each (rather rushed) sophisticatedly slanted letter in every ghastly word:
Sage,
I regret to inform you of this favor on such short notice. It seems as if I will be out of Karrin for several months on a very important mission that Camill has assigned for me regarding Alormai’s disappearance, as you may very well be aware of, which means that I will not be capable of maintaining order in F.A.L.S.E. or Karrin. I’ve confidently decided to have Captain Leslie M. Swartz replace my role in the military for the time being. However, there is one other fairly more important matter that I will not be able to see through while I am away.
You know more than anyone else I believe, how reckless Sasha tends to become when there is no one there to watch over him. He’s constantly stirring up trouble in an unnecessary cry for attention in which I will no longer be around to provide him with. Candidly, I truly wish that he was able to accompany me and my selected mercenaries so I could keep a much needed eye on him, although we both know that he would most likely become a nuisance and a distraction, making it even more difficult to carry out this already complicated mission (we also both know the severe consequences for a mere civilian leaving the city). Although, if he was able to come with me, you wouldn’t be reading this letter at this particular moment… you’re a smart chap, I assume you already know what this is all leading to? So, right to the point then?
Aside from myself, I believe that you are the only other person in Karrin that is able to get through to Sasha. So it is, that I ask wholeheartedly, that you watch over Sasha while I am away. I am fully aware that you have a far more important person to mind, and this very well may be quiet a burden for you to handle, yet, much like Sasha, I also know you very well, and I believe that you can fulfill this rather illogical favor in addition with carrying out your original duties.
All I ask is that you keep an eye on him and make sure he doesn’t get in over his head. You have my pemission to use whatever measures needed to keep him inline. I also want you to take legal guardianship over him if anything happens to me while I am gone. In return, I (or Captain Leslie, if anything should happen) will grant you any position in F.A.L.S.E. you desire, as I know how you really feel with your current status. And with that, I’m afraid I must cut this letter short and do nothing but leave Sasha in your reliant hands, for now or forever.
-General Pisces Von Ira
“A-Are you seriously going to do this?” Tundra asked as she handed the General’s letter back to her guardian. Sage sighed and roughly stuffed the epistle back into it’s pearly white envelope and nestled securely within the pocket of his violet overcoat. “I don’t know. It all seems like a rather big chore for someone like me to carryout in exchange for something I’m not really interested in…” “I agree COMPLETELY!” Tundra said a little louder than necessary. Sage looked at her in pure bafflement. Tundra never agreed with him on anything before. “Well, uh, I mean Sasha’s a big boy now, he can take care of himself.” she answered his questionable gaze quietly. “Tundra, what are you talking about? He may be fifteen but he still acts like a little kid. He’s so clingy and dependent…there’s no way in hell- I mean, he’s just not capable of taking care of himself, you know that.” the guardian said, quickly and pathetically covering up for the modest occasional slipped curse word that usually slipped from his thin lips whenever the subject of Sasha came up.
Tundra bit her lower lip and frantically searched the ground below, as if the perfect response to Sage’s statement was written somewhere between the cracks of the cobblestone and underneath the faint layer of dust from the unpaved merchant streets. “Well…” she said slowly, trying to make the quick hesitant words that came to her mind roll off her wicked tongue as smoothly and persuadably as possible. “He may have been that way when you knew him, but he’s changed a lot since then. I know that he’s perfectly capable of doing things for himself-” “We all know that! The kid takes everything he sets his eyes on! But that still doesn’t mean that he can take care of himself. Think about it, if we just leave him alone while the General’s away, his ego is bound to blind him and land him in prison.” Sage interrupted.
Tundra resisted the urge to kick her guardian in the shins for making this more difficult for her than it already was by taking a deep breath and thinking of what Sasha might have done if he was in her complicated situation. Although that didn’t help her much, as all she could think of him doing was staring at Sage for a moment before bursting out in laughter and running away. Tundra silently cursed the thief for putting her in this situation. As much as he appeared to be, Sage wasn’t stupid. And with the way this conversation was heading, she was sure that it was merely a matter of time before he discovered what was really going on.
“Well then wouldn’t this be the perfect occasion to give Sasha some time to figure out that he needs to start becoming more independent?” she asked steadily, “I mean he’s bound to figure out that he needs to pull himself together and be more careful for awhile. And he knows that there’s nothing separating him from prison now that Pisces is gone, so he’s also bound to keep himself in line and lie low until he returns, right? Sasha’s not as careless as you think, and I really believe that he’ll be okay if you leave him alone.” Tundra stated, trying her hardest to keep a straight face whenever she uttered the thief’s name. Sage contemplated her words for a moment. Regardless of how serious she sounded, the guardian couldn’t help but acquire a strong ominous hunch that the Major’s daughter was trying to suppress something rather important. “Right. Well I still think that it would be wise to check up on him at the very least.” he said slowly, taking keen notice on the way Tundra’s eyes grew bigger in shock and horror. “Where is he?”
Her guardian’s question echoed violently through Tundra’s head along with several promising words that her and Sasha had exchanged before he… She knew that this horrifying question was bound to come up sooner or later. Tundra had assured herself, and Sasha, that she would have enough time to think up an intelligent answer so she would be at least somewhat prepared when the question was asked but… neither one of them expected someone to look for the thief so immediately after the General’s departure. “Tundra, where is he?” Sage repeated in her silence. At that moment the Major’s daughter felt something new towards Sasha, something she had never felt before. The rambunctious thief had put her in some difficult positions before, all of which she was required to either run or hide for both of their lives, but even then Tundra never complained or held a grudge against him for putting her life (or reputation as Sage may have called it) on the line, she actually found it to be quite exciting whenever Sasha needed her help in order to accomplish whatever it was that Sasha accomplished. Yet as she vulnerably stood there with nothing but nonsense and lies to converse with Sage in, Tundra actually found herself hating the thief for putting her in such a multifaceted position. What exactly did Sasha expect her to say to Sage, or anyone nevertheless, who came to her in question? Whatever you feel is right. That was the answer Sasha had given her when she asked him that exact same question. Whatever you feel is right… it had sounded easy enough at the time, but at this very moment Tundra wasn’t sure what exactly she felt was right anymore. She didn’t think it was faithfully right for the thief to leave her with such a heavy responsibility, then again she also didn’t think it was okay for Sasha to leave her period, especially after everything she had told him the previous night. Tundra also didn’t think it was alright to flat our lie to Sage at this moment, because then in some definite aspect she would also be lying to the General, who certainly had the right over everyone else to know where his only younger sibling was. So if she didn’t feel anything was right anymore, would it be correct not to say anything at all?
~*~
Syra laughed lightly as she gracefully floated down from the end of the wagon. It was three ‘o’ clock now, according to the blinding position of the sun and Seru’s platinum stop watch, and the General’s team had gradually began to feel the cruel wave of hunger cruelly draft over them as they traveled. “Finally! We get to eat!” Syra sang merrily as Mosquito quickly found his way to her side. Pisces ignited another cigarette as he wearily looked around the unadorned forest. He had personally wanted to continue moving until they had at least came across Bokaru, the closest neighboring city to Karrin, yet according to Seru they would have been lucky if they reached the infamous plantation town by nightfall, and until then it would have been wise if all of them at least ate enough to regain their energy.
Seru swiftly took out a small bag of chimney grey oats from his rather petite wooden trunk and began scooping them into Lypick’s leather feeding bag. The enormous horse prodded merrily in place as the faint echo of a grained waterfall whispered into it’s small ears, his golden hooves accidentally flattening the defenseless olive grass that unfortunately lied beneath it’s engulfing shadow. “We have to make this stop as quick as possible if we want to reach Bokaru by midnight.” Pisces muttered, taking a seat next to Syra upon a damp fallen log. “I wouldn’t even worry about it, General. With all the heavy cargo Lypick here’s forced to drag around in this heat I doubt we’ll make it there anytime soon, even if we tried. Might as well take it easy for today and push hard for ol’ Bokaru tomorrow morning.” Seru said as he struggled to tie the leather feeding bag to Lypick’s fluttering snout. Pisces rolled his sapphire eyes in annoyance. Somewhere along the fairly tranquil six hours they had been traveling, the General’s lenience had violently wavered into keenness and impatience, which he was sure had absolutely nothing to do with leaving Karrin, although the city was the only thing that had been clouding his mind since they departed.
“Hey General, I have a question.” Syra said abruptly, catching Pisces off guard. “Ha, Syra. We’re going to be together for quite a while, I wouldn’t mind if you just called me Pisces.” he laughed nervously, feeling Mosquito’s suspicious gaze upon the back of his neck. Syra smiled awkwardly at the General’s request. Everyone she met, no matter how important, had always required her to address them by either their last name or position, although now that she thought about it they probably had a good reason for asking her to identify them in that matter considering her revolting line of work in the past, yet she still felt kind of discomfited at the thought of calling her chief by his forename. “Okay…Pisces, I have a question.” she said quietly, mentally kicking herself for going against everything she was taught by actually obeying the General’s solicit. “Shoot.” Pisces said simply, unable to hide the slight flush of pink that stained his painted cheeks at the honeysweet purr of his first name from her saintly lips. He figured Mosquito must have noticed his faint change in color, as a hushed growl of caution that only he could hear emitted from the depths of the man’s throat. Pisces was thankful when Seru plopped down on his other side with a small case of recently prepared cuisine, drawing Mosquito’s attentive gaze away from the General’s back. “Anyways, I was just wondering if Camill sent us all on a wild goose chase or if he gave you some insight about who may have kidnapped Alormai.” Syra said straightforwardly, gladly accepting Seru’s offer of a handful of beef jerky sticks to gnaw on while he prepared salmon rice balls for everyone.
Pisces took one last draw of his cigarette before sighing and wearily extinguishing it into the clammy surface of the log everyone but Mosquito had decided to rest upon. Camill had informed him that his selected group of comrades for this mission didn’t know a whole lot about their objective, but the General had at least figured that they would have been up to date on who the Major believed had taken his daughter. “Oi, Seru. Will you be so kind as to hand me the map of Tashma?” he asked. Seru instantly paused his hasty food preparations and happily took the elegantly rolled up map from his back pocket and passed it to the General. “Thanks.” Pisces hummed, unraveling the elongated parchment and spreading it out on a nearby log. Syra leaped to the General’s side as he beckoned for her to join him. And although the pair were merely a foot or so away from their original resting place, Mosquito still managed to glide behind Syra, giving truth to the first and only statement he had muttered to Pisces- that the two were indeed inseparable. “It looks like I’ll have to start from the beginning.” the General said slowly as his azure eyes briskly scanned the map. In a way, Pisces had kind of felt a tad thankful that he had to clarify everything Camill had explained to him with his companions, as it gave him an opportunity to push away any thoughts of Karrin and make sure he still had everything memorized, although he was almost certainly positive he did, after all, both his and Alormai’s lives were at stake.
“Alormai was taken two days ago, September twenty-ninth, some time between ten and eleven pm. We were positive that no inhabitant of Karrin had taken her, as the gates to the Camill Manor are locked at precisely nine pm. There was also the fact that no civilian knew anything about Alormai’s existence, so that option was instantly canceled out. Now, as you may have noticed, there is a wall that surrounds the city, one that could not have easily been climbed due to it’s steep height. The gateway leading to Tashma is securely bolted at all times so merely walking through the doors into the city is virtually impossible. Yet despite all these circumstances, Camill did acknowledge one possible, and most likely way that the alleged kidnappers could have gotten into Karrin, a way that you Syra could most likely vindicate.” Pisces said, nodded to Syra. She stared blankly back at him for a moment, trying to exclude the only reason he would mention her at this point in the conversation, yet there was no other explanation. “Magic?” she asked in disbelief. The General nodded again to confirm her inquiry. “Magic. Aside from Forlabid, there is one other city that mastered in the dark arts, La’ Condrias. Unfortunately, this surreptitious city was annihilated more than forty years ago in order to build Karrin. Since all but three of it’s citizens were muted to the idea of moving into Forlabid, everyone was executed under Camill’s orders. The three warlocks, who where also known as Bishops in La’ Condrias, quickly found out about the extermination of their people shortly after they migrated to Forlabid and were rumored to begin seeking revenge.
“The strongest of the three living Bishops, Lynx Mazii, was said to once have been Camill’s best friend. Yes, ironically La’ Condrias’ destroyer had also been born and raised in the city of the dark arts. Anyway, Mazii became furiously vengeful when he learned who exactly it was that had slaughtered his clan of Bishops and made it known to Camill that he would avenge those who had been lost. Unfortunately, Camill never heeded any of his warnings, although he did dedicate a decade of his life into building a secure wall around Karrin and forming a strong military force, F.A.L.S.E., to assure himself that his city would be safe from any attacks that Mazii may have made in the future. Forty years had passed, and there was no word or sign of Mazii’s alleged attack on Camill or Karrin, and soon our Major came to the hesitant conclusion that his enemy had finally died. And then Alormai was kidnapped.
“There was no trace of entry or a struggle in Alormai’s bedroom, which implies that magic was used to obtain both admission to the city and the girl. Although there was no physical evidence, a maid at the manor said that she had witnessed a blinding red light flash from under the door to Alormai’s chamber, which lead her to investigate, only to find out she was missing. Another peculiar piece of information came from a well known message villager from outside of Karrin, who said he had seen a human hand pinned to the trunk of a maple tree with a dagger near the city while on his way to deliver a letter from Camill’s relatives, yet he said when he approached it the hand crumbled into dust and blew away in a mysterious strong wind that seemed to come from Karrin itself. Strangely enough, when I asked several soliders who watch over the streets of the city at night, neither of them recalled a blast of wind of any sort, which they would have been sure to remember, as Karrin is always smoldering hot stuffy at night. I’m almost positive that both the inexplicable red flash of light, strong gust of wind and the pinned hand are tied together in some way, as they all happened in or around Karrin on the same night, our best bet is that magic is providing these strings and Lynx Mazii is the puppeteer. Syra, I need you to give me a logical exclamation on how these things may have played a role in Alormai’s kidnapping so we can confidently move on. Does any of this sound familiar to you in some way?” Pisces asked.
Syra’s face no longer held a gentle, curious look to it. Instead, a mask of question and concern painted over her innocent structure, making her appear older and more mature than she really was. She could feel three sets of bold eyes searching her body, making her feel as if she were some sort of statue in an art gallery that held the answers to the universe somewhere within her composition. Avoiding everyone’s eyes, especially the General’s, Syra took advantage of the earsplitting silence to ponder over everything she was taught. Something about the red light defiantly sounded familiar to her, but the hand pinned to the tree and the blast of wind threw her off track completely. Yet that light… “Well,” she hesitantly began, “Whatever method used to capture Alormai was defiantly some sort of taboo. I’m sorry that I can’t give you a certain answer just yet, although I do have a tricky guess. A while ago, I remember reading something that closely resembled that of the red light you mentioned. It’s not something you purchase in a local charisma store, since it’s a dark art you have to make it yourself. For the life of me, I couldn’t tell you what it’s used for but… I know for a fact that it’s some sort of taboo, which means that a sacrifice may have been needed in order to produce it, which could very well explain the hand. Why it was pinned to a maple tree with a dagger, I couldn’t tell you. The gust of wind is beyond my knowledge, but with what I do know I could guess again that the breeze came from Karrin as the kidnappers were leaving. See, in taboo if you don’t use an entire human for a sacrifice, that piece of the body that was surrendered disappears as it’s owner creeps farther and farther away from it. So maybe it vanished when it’s vendor did? I don’t know. I’m sorry Gener- Pisces, but a guess is all I can give you until I read up on it more. As a matter-of-fact, I packed some volumes about ancient taboos and the dark arts, so I’ll defiantly look into it for you, Sir. But I’m sorry I can’t be of anymore help to you at the moment.” she said apologetically.
Pisces halfheartedly smiled. “It’s okay Syra, I think you’ve helped out more than you may think. I’m sure that the answer lies somewhere within those books. Don’t worry, we have six months…we’ll find it.” he assured her before taking a now cold rice ball from the cheap platter that Seru had unnoticeably placed beside the map. Syra smiled as she and Seru mocked the General and took a salmon rice ball. “Here Mosquito, aren’t you hungry?” Syra asked as she lightly turned around and handed her guardian an eerily perfect piece of their petite meal. Mosquito shot it down with a deathly glare. “Where did you get texts on taboo?” he asked slowly, making everyone look up at him with a faint expression of shock. “Ha! It’s nice to hear you speak Squitty, you had me worried! For a moment there I thought you may have went mute, and you know how horrible I am when it comes to sign language... My hands always have horse shit on them and I‘m pretty sure that some mutes may take that offensively.” Seru laughed lightly, although his joke didn’t cease the bristly chill that ran down Pisces’ spine whenever Mosquito spoke. Although he knew that the gloomy man was a valuable accomplice to have on this mission, the General wished that he would just stay quiet for the next six months. “I took them from Master’s studies before we left.” Syra said simply, trying to hide the insecurity in her voice from her associates. She knew that Mosquito wouldn’t dare say or do anything with Pisces and Seru around, although from the weight of his piercing gaze, Syra was sure that Mosquito would have a lot to say to her later.
“So what course are we taking?” Seru asked Pisces as he acknowledged Lypick’s impatient prods for more oats out of the corner of his eye. The General swallowed his last bite of food and jabbed a finger at Karrin, which was represented by a fairly large circle with tiny merchant supplies in the lower left-hand corner of the map. “We’re basically following a straightforward trail through Tashma.” he explained, slowly dragging his index finger north along an invisible path. “Bokaru is the closest city to us at the moment, which will be our first stop. We’re only immobilizing there to obtain a greater supply of food in exchange for a trunk of merchant supplies from Karrin, if by any chance we get there late enough into the day we’ll stop there to rest. Now mind me when I say that we’re not stopping at every city we come across, only the main ones that may hold some information on Lynx Mazii or Alormai.” he said, gesturing towards several large circled cities. “Our main objective is to reach each of the three Bishop Manors. We believe that Alormai is being held captive in either one of them. As you can see, each one is quite a distance away from a neighboring city, which would be an ideal place to keep prisoners or plan whatever it is Mazii has in mind without interruption. We’re going to have to figure out a way to sneak into each manor and search it entirely for any clues that may tell us where exactly Alormai is, or for Alormai herself.” Pisces said wearily, his voice trailing off as he scanned over the map for what felt like the thousandth time that day. Seru had marked the ground they had covered with his quill, and although the small X that marked where they had currently stopped in the middle of nowhere only appeared to be mere centimeters away from Karrin, he knew that in reality they had traveled many miles away from his hometown, not so much that he didn’t have the option to turn back, but farther than he ever wanted to be.
“Sounds good to me.” Seru yawned, rising from the ground and lazily stretching. “Well it’s about twenty minutes till three.” Pisces informed everyone as he peered past the roof of leaves from the feeble trees that surrounded them, “We’d better get moving, we have a long way to go.” Syra leaped up from the ground and joined Seru in a much needed stretch, and Pisces had to admit that the simple act looked better in a peculiar way when she preformed it. The General briskly rolled up the map and handed it to Seru as Mosquito intentionally blocked Syra from his view. “Syra, show me those books you have.” Mosquito said dully as everyone headed back to the wagon. Syra nodded and raced ahead. “I kept them in the winter supplies trunk so they’d be cushioned and wouldn’t be thrown around with everything else.” she called, hopping onto the back of the carriage and searching for the correct trunk. The rest of the team reached her just as she let out a note of happiness at finding the trunk so quickly. “I’m just glad it wasn’t stored underneath everything else or I would…” Syra froze for a moment as she lifted the heavy wooden lid of the large trunk.
No one but Mosquito noticed her abrupt pause, as Seru was desperately trying to undo Lypick’s leather feeding bag from his harness as the stallion bizarrely began to ease from an impatient stir into a frantic spasm of excitement, and Pisces was aimlessly watching the chauffeur struggle to soothe his horse. “L-Lypick! Calm down boy…let me get this off you now. Ugh! What’s gotten into y-you?” Seru said desperately, pulling the leather feeder off the horse’s long snout just to allow it to let out a shrill cry of enthusiasm, which horrendously mixed with a loud wail of terror from Syra. “What’s wrong?” Mosquito asked as he leapt to her side. Syra cowered behind him, clinging to his foreign trench coat as if her life depended on it. Pisces and Seru rushed to the end of the wagon. “What’s happened?” the General asked as he noticed how terribly shaken Syra had become. Seru started at her in the petrified silence for a moment before turning his gaze upon Lypick. It wasn’t unnatural for Syra to overreact to something that frightened her, and Seru would have easily came to the conclusion that she had seen a spider or something if it hadn’t been for his horse’s strange reaction. Whatever had spooked her had excited Lypick moments before she cried out in horror, which rose deep suspicion, considering that the stallion had lashed out in the same act of violent enthusiasm mere hours ago while they were in Karrin. He thought it was just the heat but now… Syra took several deep breaths before turning her attention back to the trunk. Without answering her companion’s worried questions, she tentatively crawled to the opposite side of the wagon and stared intensely at the large chest of winter supplies. Everyone seemed to edge closer to her and the crate out of instinct and pure curiosity. Whatever had freighted her and Lypick was inside that trunk. Syra inhaled one last reassuring breath of air before slowly placing her hands on the lid gradually inclining it upwards.
At first everything was still as she inquisitively peeked inside it’s deep hollow. Through the moment of stillness, Pisces began to wonder if whatever she had seen had flown or crawled out of the trunk before she slammed it closed. He had just began to turn to Seru and mutter something about how ridiculous girls reactions were to insects or mice when the heavy lid to the trunk flew open with a dominate force. The General felt his lungs slide freely down his throat and straight through his stomach as the most horrifying sights he had ever beheld raged playfully before his wide cerulean eyes. “No.” he heard himself whisper, although he was sure his voice box had gone callously numb along with the rest of his body. He had to be imagining things, this must have been some sort of sick illusion his eyes had been projecting. Seru must have slipped something into his rice cake, or maybe into his water container to make him go insane. There was no other reasonable explanation that could at least come close to making him witness such a horrendous sight, unless the unimaginable had happened, and what he was seeing was accurate. “No.” He needed something, anything, to give him a signal that he was daydreaming. Syra was going to splash his face with water soon and slap him awake any minute now, he was sure of it. Yet as time passed and the unbearable seconds slowly slipped into never-ending minutes, Pisces found that no wave of reality was destined to wash over him. Syra didn’t have to vigorously slap him awake, because the next striking words that echoed through his mind told him that what he was seeing was authentically real, and just as terrifying.
“Oi! You didn’t have to go and slam that on my head, that fuckin hurt ya know!” Sasha’s voice ricocheted throughout the seemingly bare forest as he rubbed the top of his head robustly. Syra fell backwards on her hands and shuffled away from the occupied trunk with another shrill scream. Mosquito growled and quickly glided in front of her, shielding her trembling body from Sasha’s questionable reach. “YOU!!” he sneered disgustedly, baring his carnivorous teeth to the thief, who pointed a finger at Mosquito and gawked in surprise, his lower jaw moving slowly as he struggled to find words to express what he was feeling at the moment. “…I hate you!” was all that Sasha managed to sputter as the thought finally settled in that Mosquito was actually joining his older brother on this mission. The minutes deathly quiet minutes passed as Sasha and Mosquito glared at one another, nether one blinking to show any sign of weakness or fear against the other. Lypick and Seru seemed to break the tension-filled silence at precisely the same moment as both of them did what they normally did when complete and utter shock overwhelmed them; snort out in laughter. This seemed to lighten Sasha’s shock a bit, although he couldn’t help but feel as if he wasn’t wanted there as his onyx eyes slowly passed over Syra, who was now peeking curiously at him from behind Mosquito’s back, and onto Pisces, who’s expression was unsurprisingly blank, as it naturally was.
When no one said anything, the thief gladly crawled out of the crowded trunk and jumped off the side of the wagon beside Seru and Lypick. “Well I’m glad someone’s happy to see me.” he sang as Lypick settled down enough to give him a small appreciative nudge in the chest. Sasha happily caressed the stallion’s chin. “Hey boy! Did you miss me, huh? Did ya? Did ya? Oh you shoulda known I’d never let you leave without me!” Sasha sang foolishly as if he were speaking to an infant or a dog. The horse neighed happily once again, forcing Seru to replace his hysterical laughter with a weary smile. “You know Lypick?” he asked happily as he bounded over to Sasha’s side. “We’ve met.” the thief said with a sly smirk. “Oh that’s excellent! What do you think about him? He’s my pride and joy you know. A rare mix of Clydesdale and Unicorn… before they became extinct. Yes, Lypick’s been around for more than eight hundred years, although I can’t say the same for me, I’m only twenty four, sadly. Yeah he still has another century or two on his hide. And he really seems to like you! That’s pretty rare, normally he tends to hate everyone at first, hell he hated me for twenty three years!” Seru barked proudly, making the thief feel freaked out and a little more welcome. Did this guy even realize that Sasha had just randomly emerged from one of his cargo trunks?
It wasn’t long before Pisces came to his senses and made his way efficiently towards the opposite end of the wagon. “Sasha! What the hell are you doing?!” he cried in disbelief. The thief glanced around nervously. “Oh, uh…hey bro! SURPRISE!” he sang out loudly, making Mosquito flinch angrily. “What are you doing here?” the General asked, the urgency in his voice making it sound vaguely as if he were about to cry. “I decided at the last minute that I was going with you. I mean, I couldn’t let you have ALL the fun now could I? But isn’t this great? Now we can spend more of that quality time your always going on about together!” Sasha smiled broadly. Pisces glanced around at his comrades, all of which were now staring at the two in utmost amusement before grabbing his little brother violently by the elbow and dragging him several feet away from the horse. “Oh wow! Look, it’s all trees and grass… There’s no walls!” Sasha said excitedly as he gazed around at his surroundings. “Sasha!” Pisces spat, roughly releasing his grip on the thief’s arm. “Aww! It’s just as I imagined it would be, Pisces! Come on, lets go explore!” Sasha said yearningly. “You’re not going anywhere! Sasha…do you realize what you’ve just done? You left Karrin!!” the General shouted, making the thief rub his ear. “So? Just take him back.” Syra called sweetly, clearly recovering from the initial shock the thief had given her. Pisces breathed heavily in annoyance and panic. Obviously they weren’t as far away from the wagon as he thought. “Yeah Pisces, just take me back.” Sasha said in mock agreement. “You know damn well that I can’t just take you back!” the General said, rounding back on his younger brother. Seru sprung over to his captain and his little brother with Syra, Mosquito unhurriedly following them. “Why not? We’re only six hours away from Karrin, it’s not like we’d loose much time.” Seru said. Pisces sighed heavily. “It’s not that, its…” “It’s because if Pisces takes me back to Karrin they’d kill me on the spot.” Sasha interrupted. Seru and Syra shockingly gazed at the Ira brothers in unison. “It’s true. It doesn’t matter who I’m related to, once they figure out I left the city the Major himself will set out to have my head when I return.” Sasha shrugged. “That’s horrible!” Syra cried, making Mosquito roll his dark eyes.
“What are you going to do, General?” Seru asked. Pisces sighed and ran his fingers despairingly through his hair. “I don’t know.” he said quietly, staring almost sorrowfully at his younger brother, who was far more interested in the faint outline of the mountains in the distance than his own fate. “I say we take him back.” Mosquito muttered, causing everyone to glance at him. For someone that rarely shows any emotion, he somehow managed to give off a But That’s Just Me sort of look to answer all of their questionable gazes. “Pisces, I know you have no choice but to let me come with you, but just let me say that I really want to stay. I promise that I wont be a distraction and I wont interfere with anything. I don’t care about Alormai and I don’t care that your going to hate me for the rest of my life, I’m just going along for the ride. I’ll let you play your little military mission game with your buddies here in peace if you just let me watch, like we used to do when you were at the academy.” Sasha said as he looked Pisces imploringly in the eye. The General shook his head slowly and took out another much needed cigarette. “I don’t know.” he murmured, allowing the flames from his lighter to lick the front of his nose as he ignited his drug. “Pisces, please! Come on, you know how much I’ve longed for this! Look, you wont even know I’m here. I wont even ride on the wagon, I’ll walk behind it okay? God damnit. I dunno, just…please.” Sasha pleaded with the General one last time. Pisces took a long deliberate draw from his cigarette as he pondered over his little brother’s words. It seemed as if everyone but Mosquito had held their breath as the last puff of smoke wafted from between the General’s fine lips as he opened them to bring forth his final judgment. Syra secretly crossed her slender fingers, hopeful that Mosquito didn’t take any notice of what her hands were doing at this particular moment. “Fine, you can come with us. But just…be quiet.” Pisces said dully.
Sasha smirked furtively as he resisted the urge to jump up in the air and shout out in triumph. It was a fairly stupid, simple plan to escape Karrin next to all of the rather diabolically more adventurous ones he had always brewed up in the back of his mind, but it had worked. And how could it have failed? Despite however much repugnance Pisces had built up against his brother over the years, Sasha was positive that he wouldn’t send him back to Karrin, to his death, so easily. After all, no matter how much the General hated to admit it, Sasha was his own flesh and blood wasn’t he? There was no way he could simply exile him, although in a peculiar sense, wasn’t that what he had been doing for the last fifteen years?
~*~
The sun had finally began to slip beyond the distance mountain ridges in the west, blanketing Tashma under a glistening think sheet of ginger luminosity. The fragile trees that meagerly formed a loose forest beside the faint sanded trail seemed to scream out in agony as the sun’s ultimate brutal rays bleached away their naturally shady colors, forcing them to conceal themselves into their bystander’s sinister shadows. Sparrows from near and far began to wearily carry home the last of their kill to their kin, each carnivorous bird sending a shrill warning across the neon sky to one another, singing eerily about the owls and herons which were soon destined to come out to hunt. The winding earth was coming to a sudden standstill as its skies desperately awaited the festive arrival of their mystifying moon and its faithful diamond-like comrades. Dusk was gripping Tashma’s impassioned surface once again.
“Pisces LOOK!! It’s a deer!” Sasha wailed out excitedly, making Syra restrain a giggle. The General rolled his eyes as he dully watched the thief halt several feet behind the wagon and peer curiously into the forest. “Oh wait…false alarm, it was only a log!” Sasha informed his older brother as he raced back up to the wagon. The thief had been acting childishly all day, constantly stopping to enthusiastically point out a river or a squirrel. At first Pisces (and everyone else) had thought he was doing this to purposely annoy him, but it wasn’t until the General was absentmindedly reminded that this was the first time Sasha had been away from Karrin when he realized that this was also the fist time the thief had actually seen the tangible world. There was no wildlife or mountains inside the walls of the city, only concrete and a phony river with a name that meant prison in the Bishop tongue. And as much as it annoyed him, Pisces couldn’t really blame Sasha for dramatizing over the simplest of things, as he could distantly remember himself acting in the same manner seven years ago, although he would never admit it to Sasha.
“So what do you want to do, General? We’re still roughly forty miles from Bokaru, we could set up camp here if you’d like.” Seru said, thankfully breaking Pisces from his thoughts. “Right here’s fine Seru.” the General said as he examined the bare area to the right. Lypick came to a soothing stop with a simple flick of his reigns. “Oh yay! Does this mean we have time to make a decent dinner?” Syra asked as she and Mosquito followed Pisces off the wagon. “Sure does.” Seru called out happily, taking the ends of his stallion’s leather reigns and tying them securely around the trunk of a nearby scrawny tree. “Good, cause those rice balls didn’t do shit.” Pisces said dryly as he shook his pack of cigarettes to discover that he only had six left. Just as he was going to curse his miserable luck, a dull thud closely followed by a rather loud moan emitted from behind him. By Syra’s sweet laughter and the way Mosquito was shaking his head in utter disapproval, the General didn’t have to turn around to know that Sasha, who had been trotting distantly behind the carriage as promised, had been too distracted to realize that the wagon had stopped, therefore slamming right into the back of it. “This defiantly isn’t going to get me through the night.” Pisces muttered as he lit another pearly cigarette.
“So, is there any volunteers to go out and get firewood?” Seru asked, clapping his hands loudly together. “I will!” Sasha said eagerly as he raced up to join the group in a small huddle. “No you wont.” Pisces said flatly. “Why not?” Sasha asked in disbelief. “Because you’ll end up getting distracted and wandering off somewhere.” the General said. Normally Sasha would have taken this offensively, but at the moment it seemed as if nothing, including the General of F.A.L.S.E., could dampen his spirit. “I’ll do it.” Syra happily volunteered, “He can go with me and help me carry it.” she said, pointing a thumb over her shoulder at Sasha, who was staring disgustedly at a large spider eating a moth on a nearby tree limb. Just as Mosquito opened his mouth in disapproval, Seru wrapped one arm around his shoulder and another around the General’s. “Actually I think that’s a grand idea. I’ve been meaning to talk to you two alone.” Seru said rather quietly, glancing at Mosquito. He started blankly back at the farmer for a moment before hesitantly nodding in agreement. “Go Syra.” Mosquito said firmly after a while of silence. Syra nodded merrily and grabbed Sasha gently by the arm. “Come on, let’s get outta here.” she sang sweetly, reminding the thief vaguely of Tundra as she yanked him backwards into the naked forest.
“So what was your name again?” Syra asked as the two quickly distanced themselves away from the rest of the group. “Huh? Oh, it’s Sasha.” the thief said as he gazed up ahead at the tinted tree leaves. “Sasha…that’s pretty.” Syra smiled. Sasha resisted the urge to throw up at the mention of his name being pretty, although he had to admit that when she said it, it sounded rather enchanting. “If you say so.” he said quietly, knowing that the girl would probably go hysterical if she knew what his name really meant. “Well Sasha, that was some stunt you pulled back there.” she laughed, scanning the grounds for stray pieces of bark or wood. “Yeah, about that. I’m sorry if I startled you back there, I didn’t mean to.” the thief halfheartedly apologized, although he had to admit that the face she made when she realized there was a man in her trunk was absolutely priceless. “Oh no it’s okay! Really, I’m just thankful I found you before you suffocated.” Syra laughed, stopping to pick up a rather small sliver of bark. “Yeah so am I! The lack of air wasn’t really what was bothering me though, it was just that it was so damn crowded and hot. I swear I was starting to think that by the time someone discovered I was there my body would have taken the shape of the damn trunk.” Sasha said, making Syra laugh lightly. The two walked for a moment in silence, each letting their gaze trail off to the side of the mangled route before embarrassingly catching one in a small peek at the other. Sasha felt his face unintentionally turn red and turned his head to clear his throat. “You must really love your brother.” Syra said, catching the thief off guard. “W-What?” he said in astonishment at her random words. “Well I mean, you risked your life to be with him right? Isn’t that why you snuck out of the city?” she asked, pausing briefly to obtain a thick branch. “Hell no! I didn’t sneak outta Karrin for that bastard, I did it for myself. I mean you would too if you were being held captive in a place like that.” the thief said rather curtly. “No…I don’t think I would. Not if it was against the rules.” Syra said softly. Sasha resisted the urge to roll his eyes. She was just like everyone else in Karrin. “Would you really rather be cooped up in a stuffy town like Karrin than miss out on all this?” the thief asked dreamily as he gazed off into the distance. Syra followed his intense gaze, wondering if he had been looking at something that she wasn’t able to see. “I don’t know. Sure it’s great to get out and stuff but… at least you’re safe in Karrin.” she said as firmly as possible. Sasha cocked an eyebrow. “I guess so. But it’s so much better out here! You’re living on the wild side, never knowing what could happen next. Sure it may be dangerous but it’s exciting!” he said enthusiastically. “How is that exciting?” Syra laughed, stopping to pick up yet another stray branch. “I…uh…I don’t really know.” Sasha said, feeling a little stupid for failing to think things over before he said them. Syra smiled and shook her head. “Well you can think about it while you help me look for firewood.” she laughed, noting Sasha’s vacant hands. “Maybe I will.” the thief smirked, taking a piece of bark from the small pile in her hands.
Nearly an hour had passed before the two decided that they had gathered a fair amount of wood to contribute to the fire. As Sasha spent more and more time talking to Syra, his curious new surroundings began to slowly slip from his mind. He didn’t know what exactly attracted him to her so much. His original excuse would have been her foreign accent and angelic beauty, but strangely that didn’t quite seem to do it justice. There was just something about her personality, her free spirit, that caught his attention. Here was a person who had never lived her life in enslavement. She had been born free, her spirit just as wild and untamed as his, for there was never a brick wall separating her from the rest of the world. For the first time in his life, Sasha was interacting with someone who was more like him than he could have ever imagined. For the first time, he was talking to someone who understood him.
Syra’s virtuous laugh echoed through the bare forest as Sasha shared stories of the bizarre troubles he faced while simply trying to steal a decent lunch with her, lifting the thief’s spirits higher than he thought was possible. “And Mattick, oh man this guy is great, a real character that one is, he’s real hefty and awfully mean…kinda like a hippopotamus. Anyways, he’s the best merchant to take something from. He’s wheat tastes like shit and everyone knows it, so all you really gotta do is insult him and he gets pissed off. I just take stuff from his shop to see him run after me. It’s the funniest thing you’ll ever see in your entire life! Oh man you really got to see it to know what I mean when I say that guy runs like a walrus with it’s ass caught on fire.” Sasha barked, making Syra erupt into even more violent giggles until her voice grew husky. “Oh my god.” she sighed, “You’re terrible! Stealing other people’s stuff just to see them get pissed off…I’m surprised you were never arrested or locked up- Sasha? What’s wrong?” Syra asked. The thief had stopped dead in his tracks, his onyx eyes wide and filled with a hunger-like gaze. And although his expressionless face was bleached orange from the sun, Syra could tell that the color had drained from it completely. She was just about to ask him what was wrong again when Sasha dropped his mound of wood with a dull thud and raced ahead of her. “Sasha! Where are you going?” she cried, quickly setting down her pile of branches next to his scattered one and chasing after him.
Sasha ran as fast as his legs would allow him to. “How could I be so stupid?” he muttered under his breath. The thought hadn’t even struck him that he had just left Syra without an exclamation. For that brief moment, everything vanished. All he wanted to do, all he wanted to think about, was getting as close to it as possible. There was nothing standing in his way anymore. There was no busy people to push past, no authorities to avoid, and most importantly, no wall to stop him from reaching it. The wind nearly lifted his feet from the ground as he raced towards the end of the steep hill, the only thing breaking his most likely fatal fall being a wide tree to his left. Sasha wrapped his arms tightly around its trunk to prevent him from flying down the slope, his legs flinging loosely in front of his body as he swiftly broke his fall. His breath caught as he found his feet and stabled himself against the tree, although it hadn’t been the abrupt halt that made his thrashing heart skip a beat, but the sight that lied just beyond the reach of his fingertips.
Sasha’s heart swelled up dangerously in awe. The thief had never seen the sunset before…never. Nighttime had always been established when the giant neon globe disappeared behind the height of Karrin’s gloomy brick wall, which the giant clock tower on the east side of the city had always indicated was only six ’o’ clock, nearly two hours before the sun really set. But still, Sasha could have never imagined that the real twilight would be so…beautiful. A mere ring of the sun’s illuminating orb peeked from behind two mountain ridges, painting everything it was forced to say goodbye to a rich color of blonde and auburn. The river below shimmered intensely under the last of the sun’s warm rays, little specks of gold dancing freely upon its blinding surface. The dense forest that outlined the bottom of the mountains had been drowned in the mammoth crag’s shadow, which somehow caused the flaxen valleys that lied before them to appear even more captivating than grass could ever be allowed to be. The world had been tainted into warmth, beckoning out its true fashion; one of welcome and serenity that it clandestinely hid from the Gods watchful eyes, for an angel had secretly placed a slice of heaven right on Earth.
“Sasha! What are you doing?” Syra panted as she slid next to the thief’s side. Sasha remained silent as he gawked into the sunset, making Syra wonder if he had realized she was there. Although he was perfectly aware of her being at his side, Sasha couldn’t help but ignore her, as all he could think about was how much he wanted Tundra to be there to see this with him. Syra peered into the west for a while as she tried to figure out what on Earth the thief was staring at, but all she saw was the sun slipping away to make space for the moon to replace its rightful position in the sky. “Come on, we gotta head back before they start to wonder where we-” “This is why it’s exciting.” Sasha whispered, making Syra cock an eyebrow. “It’s exciting because you’re free.”
...yup and that was chapter 11 ^_^
~*Chapter Eleven*~
“Look for yourself.” Sage said simply, casually handing Tundra an ashen piece of parchment. Tundra glared at him suspiciously for a brief moment, as if her guardian had insisted that the paper he had been clutching tightly for the last half hour had held the answers to the seven wonders of the world upon it, before snatching it quickly from his sweaty grasp. Her artic eyes swiftly took in the words written in the elegant crimson ink that only Pisces seemed to own before gasping and reading it over again. “S-Sage!” she exclaimed, still skimming over the General’s letter. “What, can’t believe it? I didn’t either at first, read it again.” her guardian sighed. Tundra peered at him over the crinkled parchment for a second before turning her confused gaze to the memorandum once again, this time careful to take in each (rather rushed) sophisticatedly slanted letter in every ghastly word:
Sage,
I regret to inform you of this favor on such short notice. It seems as if I will be out of Karrin for several months on a very important mission that Camill has assigned for me regarding Alormai’s disappearance, as you may very well be aware of, which means that I will not be capable of maintaining order in F.A.L.S.E. or Karrin. I’ve confidently decided to have Captain Leslie M. Swartz replace my role in the military for the time being. However, there is one other fairly more important matter that I will not be able to see through while I am away.
You know more than anyone else I believe, how reckless Sasha tends to become when there is no one there to watch over him. He’s constantly stirring up trouble in an unnecessary cry for attention in which I will no longer be around to provide him with. Candidly, I truly wish that he was able to accompany me and my selected mercenaries so I could keep a much needed eye on him, although we both know that he would most likely become a nuisance and a distraction, making it even more difficult to carry out this already complicated mission (we also both know the severe consequences for a mere civilian leaving the city). Although, if he was able to come with me, you wouldn’t be reading this letter at this particular moment… you’re a smart chap, I assume you already know what this is all leading to? So, right to the point then?
Aside from myself, I believe that you are the only other person in Karrin that is able to get through to Sasha. So it is, that I ask wholeheartedly, that you watch over Sasha while I am away. I am fully aware that you have a far more important person to mind, and this very well may be quiet a burden for you to handle, yet, much like Sasha, I also know you very well, and I believe that you can fulfill this rather illogical favor in addition with carrying out your original duties.
All I ask is that you keep an eye on him and make sure he doesn’t get in over his head. You have my pemission to use whatever measures needed to keep him inline. I also want you to take legal guardianship over him if anything happens to me while I am gone. In return, I (or Captain Leslie, if anything should happen) will grant you any position in F.A.L.S.E. you desire, as I know how you really feel with your current status. And with that, I’m afraid I must cut this letter short and do nothing but leave Sasha in your reliant hands, for now or forever.
-General Pisces Von Ira
“A-Are you seriously going to do this?” Tundra asked as she handed the General’s letter back to her guardian. Sage sighed and roughly stuffed the epistle back into it’s pearly white envelope and nestled securely within the pocket of his violet overcoat. “I don’t know. It all seems like a rather big chore for someone like me to carryout in exchange for something I’m not really interested in…” “I agree COMPLETELY!” Tundra said a little louder than necessary. Sage looked at her in pure bafflement. Tundra never agreed with him on anything before. “Well, uh, I mean Sasha’s a big boy now, he can take care of himself.” she answered his questionable gaze quietly. “Tundra, what are you talking about? He may be fifteen but he still acts like a little kid. He’s so clingy and dependent…there’s no way in hell- I mean, he’s just not capable of taking care of himself, you know that.” the guardian said, quickly and pathetically covering up for the modest occasional slipped curse word that usually slipped from his thin lips whenever the subject of Sasha came up.
Tundra bit her lower lip and frantically searched the ground below, as if the perfect response to Sage’s statement was written somewhere between the cracks of the cobblestone and underneath the faint layer of dust from the unpaved merchant streets. “Well…” she said slowly, trying to make the quick hesitant words that came to her mind roll off her wicked tongue as smoothly and persuadably as possible. “He may have been that way when you knew him, but he’s changed a lot since then. I know that he’s perfectly capable of doing things for himself-” “We all know that! The kid takes everything he sets his eyes on! But that still doesn’t mean that he can take care of himself. Think about it, if we just leave him alone while the General’s away, his ego is bound to blind him and land him in prison.” Sage interrupted.
Tundra resisted the urge to kick her guardian in the shins for making this more difficult for her than it already was by taking a deep breath and thinking of what Sasha might have done if he was in her complicated situation. Although that didn’t help her much, as all she could think of him doing was staring at Sage for a moment before bursting out in laughter and running away. Tundra silently cursed the thief for putting her in this situation. As much as he appeared to be, Sage wasn’t stupid. And with the way this conversation was heading, she was sure that it was merely a matter of time before he discovered what was really going on.
“Well then wouldn’t this be the perfect occasion to give Sasha some time to figure out that he needs to start becoming more independent?” she asked steadily, “I mean he’s bound to figure out that he needs to pull himself together and be more careful for awhile. And he knows that there’s nothing separating him from prison now that Pisces is gone, so he’s also bound to keep himself in line and lie low until he returns, right? Sasha’s not as careless as you think, and I really believe that he’ll be okay if you leave him alone.” Tundra stated, trying her hardest to keep a straight face whenever she uttered the thief’s name. Sage contemplated her words for a moment. Regardless of how serious she sounded, the guardian couldn’t help but acquire a strong ominous hunch that the Major’s daughter was trying to suppress something rather important. “Right. Well I still think that it would be wise to check up on him at the very least.” he said slowly, taking keen notice on the way Tundra’s eyes grew bigger in shock and horror. “Where is he?”
Her guardian’s question echoed violently through Tundra’s head along with several promising words that her and Sasha had exchanged before he… She knew that this horrifying question was bound to come up sooner or later. Tundra had assured herself, and Sasha, that she would have enough time to think up an intelligent answer so she would be at least somewhat prepared when the question was asked but… neither one of them expected someone to look for the thief so immediately after the General’s departure. “Tundra, where is he?” Sage repeated in her silence. At that moment the Major’s daughter felt something new towards Sasha, something she had never felt before. The rambunctious thief had put her in some difficult positions before, all of which she was required to either run or hide for both of their lives, but even then Tundra never complained or held a grudge against him for putting her life (or reputation as Sage may have called it) on the line, she actually found it to be quite exciting whenever Sasha needed her help in order to accomplish whatever it was that Sasha accomplished. Yet as she vulnerably stood there with nothing but nonsense and lies to converse with Sage in, Tundra actually found herself hating the thief for putting her in such a multifaceted position. What exactly did Sasha expect her to say to Sage, or anyone nevertheless, who came to her in question? Whatever you feel is right. That was the answer Sasha had given her when she asked him that exact same question. Whatever you feel is right… it had sounded easy enough at the time, but at this very moment Tundra wasn’t sure what exactly she felt was right anymore. She didn’t think it was faithfully right for the thief to leave her with such a heavy responsibility, then again she also didn’t think it was okay for Sasha to leave her period, especially after everything she had told him the previous night. Tundra also didn’t think it was alright to flat our lie to Sage at this moment, because then in some definite aspect she would also be lying to the General, who certainly had the right over everyone else to know where his only younger sibling was. So if she didn’t feel anything was right anymore, would it be correct not to say anything at all?
~*~
Syra laughed lightly as she gracefully floated down from the end of the wagon. It was three ‘o’ clock now, according to the blinding position of the sun and Seru’s platinum stop watch, and the General’s team had gradually began to feel the cruel wave of hunger cruelly draft over them as they traveled. “Finally! We get to eat!” Syra sang merrily as Mosquito quickly found his way to her side. Pisces ignited another cigarette as he wearily looked around the unadorned forest. He had personally wanted to continue moving until they had at least came across Bokaru, the closest neighboring city to Karrin, yet according to Seru they would have been lucky if they reached the infamous plantation town by nightfall, and until then it would have been wise if all of them at least ate enough to regain their energy.
Seru swiftly took out a small bag of chimney grey oats from his rather petite wooden trunk and began scooping them into Lypick’s leather feeding bag. The enormous horse prodded merrily in place as the faint echo of a grained waterfall whispered into it’s small ears, his golden hooves accidentally flattening the defenseless olive grass that unfortunately lied beneath it’s engulfing shadow. “We have to make this stop as quick as possible if we want to reach Bokaru by midnight.” Pisces muttered, taking a seat next to Syra upon a damp fallen log. “I wouldn’t even worry about it, General. With all the heavy cargo Lypick here’s forced to drag around in this heat I doubt we’ll make it there anytime soon, even if we tried. Might as well take it easy for today and push hard for ol’ Bokaru tomorrow morning.” Seru said as he struggled to tie the leather feeding bag to Lypick’s fluttering snout. Pisces rolled his sapphire eyes in annoyance. Somewhere along the fairly tranquil six hours they had been traveling, the General’s lenience had violently wavered into keenness and impatience, which he was sure had absolutely nothing to do with leaving Karrin, although the city was the only thing that had been clouding his mind since they departed.
“Hey General, I have a question.” Syra said abruptly, catching Pisces off guard. “Ha, Syra. We’re going to be together for quite a while, I wouldn’t mind if you just called me Pisces.” he laughed nervously, feeling Mosquito’s suspicious gaze upon the back of his neck. Syra smiled awkwardly at the General’s request. Everyone she met, no matter how important, had always required her to address them by either their last name or position, although now that she thought about it they probably had a good reason for asking her to identify them in that matter considering her revolting line of work in the past, yet she still felt kind of discomfited at the thought of calling her chief by his forename. “Okay…Pisces, I have a question.” she said quietly, mentally kicking herself for going against everything she was taught by actually obeying the General’s solicit. “Shoot.” Pisces said simply, unable to hide the slight flush of pink that stained his painted cheeks at the honeysweet purr of his first name from her saintly lips. He figured Mosquito must have noticed his faint change in color, as a hushed growl of caution that only he could hear emitted from the depths of the man’s throat. Pisces was thankful when Seru plopped down on his other side with a small case of recently prepared cuisine, drawing Mosquito’s attentive gaze away from the General’s back. “Anyways, I was just wondering if Camill sent us all on a wild goose chase or if he gave you some insight about who may have kidnapped Alormai.” Syra said straightforwardly, gladly accepting Seru’s offer of a handful of beef jerky sticks to gnaw on while he prepared salmon rice balls for everyone.
Pisces took one last draw of his cigarette before sighing and wearily extinguishing it into the clammy surface of the log everyone but Mosquito had decided to rest upon. Camill had informed him that his selected group of comrades for this mission didn’t know a whole lot about their objective, but the General had at least figured that they would have been up to date on who the Major believed had taken his daughter. “Oi, Seru. Will you be so kind as to hand me the map of Tashma?” he asked. Seru instantly paused his hasty food preparations and happily took the elegantly rolled up map from his back pocket and passed it to the General. “Thanks.” Pisces hummed, unraveling the elongated parchment and spreading it out on a nearby log. Syra leaped to the General’s side as he beckoned for her to join him. And although the pair were merely a foot or so away from their original resting place, Mosquito still managed to glide behind Syra, giving truth to the first and only statement he had muttered to Pisces- that the two were indeed inseparable. “It looks like I’ll have to start from the beginning.” the General said slowly as his azure eyes briskly scanned the map. In a way, Pisces had kind of felt a tad thankful that he had to clarify everything Camill had explained to him with his companions, as it gave him an opportunity to push away any thoughts of Karrin and make sure he still had everything memorized, although he was almost certainly positive he did, after all, both his and Alormai’s lives were at stake.
“Alormai was taken two days ago, September twenty-ninth, some time between ten and eleven pm. We were positive that no inhabitant of Karrin had taken her, as the gates to the Camill Manor are locked at precisely nine pm. There was also the fact that no civilian knew anything about Alormai’s existence, so that option was instantly canceled out. Now, as you may have noticed, there is a wall that surrounds the city, one that could not have easily been climbed due to it’s steep height. The gateway leading to Tashma is securely bolted at all times so merely walking through the doors into the city is virtually impossible. Yet despite all these circumstances, Camill did acknowledge one possible, and most likely way that the alleged kidnappers could have gotten into Karrin, a way that you Syra could most likely vindicate.” Pisces said, nodded to Syra. She stared blankly back at him for a moment, trying to exclude the only reason he would mention her at this point in the conversation, yet there was no other explanation. “Magic?” she asked in disbelief. The General nodded again to confirm her inquiry. “Magic. Aside from Forlabid, there is one other city that mastered in the dark arts, La’ Condrias. Unfortunately, this surreptitious city was annihilated more than forty years ago in order to build Karrin. Since all but three of it’s citizens were muted to the idea of moving into Forlabid, everyone was executed under Camill’s orders. The three warlocks, who where also known as Bishops in La’ Condrias, quickly found out about the extermination of their people shortly after they migrated to Forlabid and were rumored to begin seeking revenge.
“The strongest of the three living Bishops, Lynx Mazii, was said to once have been Camill’s best friend. Yes, ironically La’ Condrias’ destroyer had also been born and raised in the city of the dark arts. Anyway, Mazii became furiously vengeful when he learned who exactly it was that had slaughtered his clan of Bishops and made it known to Camill that he would avenge those who had been lost. Unfortunately, Camill never heeded any of his warnings, although he did dedicate a decade of his life into building a secure wall around Karrin and forming a strong military force, F.A.L.S.E., to assure himself that his city would be safe from any attacks that Mazii may have made in the future. Forty years had passed, and there was no word or sign of Mazii’s alleged attack on Camill or Karrin, and soon our Major came to the hesitant conclusion that his enemy had finally died. And then Alormai was kidnapped.
“There was no trace of entry or a struggle in Alormai’s bedroom, which implies that magic was used to obtain both admission to the city and the girl. Although there was no physical evidence, a maid at the manor said that she had witnessed a blinding red light flash from under the door to Alormai’s chamber, which lead her to investigate, only to find out she was missing. Another peculiar piece of information came from a well known message villager from outside of Karrin, who said he had seen a human hand pinned to the trunk of a maple tree with a dagger near the city while on his way to deliver a letter from Camill’s relatives, yet he said when he approached it the hand crumbled into dust and blew away in a mysterious strong wind that seemed to come from Karrin itself. Strangely enough, when I asked several soliders who watch over the streets of the city at night, neither of them recalled a blast of wind of any sort, which they would have been sure to remember, as Karrin is always smoldering hot stuffy at night. I’m almost positive that both the inexplicable red flash of light, strong gust of wind and the pinned hand are tied together in some way, as they all happened in or around Karrin on the same night, our best bet is that magic is providing these strings and Lynx Mazii is the puppeteer. Syra, I need you to give me a logical exclamation on how these things may have played a role in Alormai’s kidnapping so we can confidently move on. Does any of this sound familiar to you in some way?” Pisces asked.
Syra’s face no longer held a gentle, curious look to it. Instead, a mask of question and concern painted over her innocent structure, making her appear older and more mature than she really was. She could feel three sets of bold eyes searching her body, making her feel as if she were some sort of statue in an art gallery that held the answers to the universe somewhere within her composition. Avoiding everyone’s eyes, especially the General’s, Syra took advantage of the earsplitting silence to ponder over everything she was taught. Something about the red light defiantly sounded familiar to her, but the hand pinned to the tree and the blast of wind threw her off track completely. Yet that light… “Well,” she hesitantly began, “Whatever method used to capture Alormai was defiantly some sort of taboo. I’m sorry that I can’t give you a certain answer just yet, although I do have a tricky guess. A while ago, I remember reading something that closely resembled that of the red light you mentioned. It’s not something you purchase in a local charisma store, since it’s a dark art you have to make it yourself. For the life of me, I couldn’t tell you what it’s used for but… I know for a fact that it’s some sort of taboo, which means that a sacrifice may have been needed in order to produce it, which could very well explain the hand. Why it was pinned to a maple tree with a dagger, I couldn’t tell you. The gust of wind is beyond my knowledge, but with what I do know I could guess again that the breeze came from Karrin as the kidnappers were leaving. See, in taboo if you don’t use an entire human for a sacrifice, that piece of the body that was surrendered disappears as it’s owner creeps farther and farther away from it. So maybe it vanished when it’s vendor did? I don’t know. I’m sorry Gener- Pisces, but a guess is all I can give you until I read up on it more. As a matter-of-fact, I packed some volumes about ancient taboos and the dark arts, so I’ll defiantly look into it for you, Sir. But I’m sorry I can’t be of anymore help to you at the moment.” she said apologetically.
Pisces halfheartedly smiled. “It’s okay Syra, I think you’ve helped out more than you may think. I’m sure that the answer lies somewhere within those books. Don’t worry, we have six months…we’ll find it.” he assured her before taking a now cold rice ball from the cheap platter that Seru had unnoticeably placed beside the map. Syra smiled as she and Seru mocked the General and took a salmon rice ball. “Here Mosquito, aren’t you hungry?” Syra asked as she lightly turned around and handed her guardian an eerily perfect piece of their petite meal. Mosquito shot it down with a deathly glare. “Where did you get texts on taboo?” he asked slowly, making everyone look up at him with a faint expression of shock. “Ha! It’s nice to hear you speak Squitty, you had me worried! For a moment there I thought you may have went mute, and you know how horrible I am when it comes to sign language... My hands always have horse shit on them and I‘m pretty sure that some mutes may take that offensively.” Seru laughed lightly, although his joke didn’t cease the bristly chill that ran down Pisces’ spine whenever Mosquito spoke. Although he knew that the gloomy man was a valuable accomplice to have on this mission, the General wished that he would just stay quiet for the next six months. “I took them from Master’s studies before we left.” Syra said simply, trying to hide the insecurity in her voice from her associates. She knew that Mosquito wouldn’t dare say or do anything with Pisces and Seru around, although from the weight of his piercing gaze, Syra was sure that Mosquito would have a lot to say to her later.
“So what course are we taking?” Seru asked Pisces as he acknowledged Lypick’s impatient prods for more oats out of the corner of his eye. The General swallowed his last bite of food and jabbed a finger at Karrin, which was represented by a fairly large circle with tiny merchant supplies in the lower left-hand corner of the map. “We’re basically following a straightforward trail through Tashma.” he explained, slowly dragging his index finger north along an invisible path. “Bokaru is the closest city to us at the moment, which will be our first stop. We’re only immobilizing there to obtain a greater supply of food in exchange for a trunk of merchant supplies from Karrin, if by any chance we get there late enough into the day we’ll stop there to rest. Now mind me when I say that we’re not stopping at every city we come across, only the main ones that may hold some information on Lynx Mazii or Alormai.” he said, gesturing towards several large circled cities. “Our main objective is to reach each of the three Bishop Manors. We believe that Alormai is being held captive in either one of them. As you can see, each one is quite a distance away from a neighboring city, which would be an ideal place to keep prisoners or plan whatever it is Mazii has in mind without interruption. We’re going to have to figure out a way to sneak into each manor and search it entirely for any clues that may tell us where exactly Alormai is, or for Alormai herself.” Pisces said wearily, his voice trailing off as he scanned over the map for what felt like the thousandth time that day. Seru had marked the ground they had covered with his quill, and although the small X that marked where they had currently stopped in the middle of nowhere only appeared to be mere centimeters away from Karrin, he knew that in reality they had traveled many miles away from his hometown, not so much that he didn’t have the option to turn back, but farther than he ever wanted to be.
“Sounds good to me.” Seru yawned, rising from the ground and lazily stretching. “Well it’s about twenty minutes till three.” Pisces informed everyone as he peered past the roof of leaves from the feeble trees that surrounded them, “We’d better get moving, we have a long way to go.” Syra leaped up from the ground and joined Seru in a much needed stretch, and Pisces had to admit that the simple act looked better in a peculiar way when she preformed it. The General briskly rolled up the map and handed it to Seru as Mosquito intentionally blocked Syra from his view. “Syra, show me those books you have.” Mosquito said dully as everyone headed back to the wagon. Syra nodded and raced ahead. “I kept them in the winter supplies trunk so they’d be cushioned and wouldn’t be thrown around with everything else.” she called, hopping onto the back of the carriage and searching for the correct trunk. The rest of the team reached her just as she let out a note of happiness at finding the trunk so quickly. “I’m just glad it wasn’t stored underneath everything else or I would…” Syra froze for a moment as she lifted the heavy wooden lid of the large trunk.
No one but Mosquito noticed her abrupt pause, as Seru was desperately trying to undo Lypick’s leather feeding bag from his harness as the stallion bizarrely began to ease from an impatient stir into a frantic spasm of excitement, and Pisces was aimlessly watching the chauffeur struggle to soothe his horse. “L-Lypick! Calm down boy…let me get this off you now. Ugh! What’s gotten into y-you?” Seru said desperately, pulling the leather feeder off the horse’s long snout just to allow it to let out a shrill cry of enthusiasm, which horrendously mixed with a loud wail of terror from Syra. “What’s wrong?” Mosquito asked as he leapt to her side. Syra cowered behind him, clinging to his foreign trench coat as if her life depended on it. Pisces and Seru rushed to the end of the wagon. “What’s happened?” the General asked as he noticed how terribly shaken Syra had become. Seru started at her in the petrified silence for a moment before turning his gaze upon Lypick. It wasn’t unnatural for Syra to overreact to something that frightened her, and Seru would have easily came to the conclusion that she had seen a spider or something if it hadn’t been for his horse’s strange reaction. Whatever had spooked her had excited Lypick moments before she cried out in horror, which rose deep suspicion, considering that the stallion had lashed out in the same act of violent enthusiasm mere hours ago while they were in Karrin. He thought it was just the heat but now… Syra took several deep breaths before turning her attention back to the trunk. Without answering her companion’s worried questions, she tentatively crawled to the opposite side of the wagon and stared intensely at the large chest of winter supplies. Everyone seemed to edge closer to her and the crate out of instinct and pure curiosity. Whatever had freighted her and Lypick was inside that trunk. Syra inhaled one last reassuring breath of air before slowly placing her hands on the lid gradually inclining it upwards.
At first everything was still as she inquisitively peeked inside it’s deep hollow. Through the moment of stillness, Pisces began to wonder if whatever she had seen had flown or crawled out of the trunk before she slammed it closed. He had just began to turn to Seru and mutter something about how ridiculous girls reactions were to insects or mice when the heavy lid to the trunk flew open with a dominate force. The General felt his lungs slide freely down his throat and straight through his stomach as the most horrifying sights he had ever beheld raged playfully before his wide cerulean eyes. “No.” he heard himself whisper, although he was sure his voice box had gone callously numb along with the rest of his body. He had to be imagining things, this must have been some sort of sick illusion his eyes had been projecting. Seru must have slipped something into his rice cake, or maybe into his water container to make him go insane. There was no other reasonable explanation that could at least come close to making him witness such a horrendous sight, unless the unimaginable had happened, and what he was seeing was accurate. “No.” He needed something, anything, to give him a signal that he was daydreaming. Syra was going to splash his face with water soon and slap him awake any minute now, he was sure of it. Yet as time passed and the unbearable seconds slowly slipped into never-ending minutes, Pisces found that no wave of reality was destined to wash over him. Syra didn’t have to vigorously slap him awake, because the next striking words that echoed through his mind told him that what he was seeing was authentically real, and just as terrifying.
“Oi! You didn’t have to go and slam that on my head, that fuckin hurt ya know!” Sasha’s voice ricocheted throughout the seemingly bare forest as he rubbed the top of his head robustly. Syra fell backwards on her hands and shuffled away from the occupied trunk with another shrill scream. Mosquito growled and quickly glided in front of her, shielding her trembling body from Sasha’s questionable reach. “YOU!!” he sneered disgustedly, baring his carnivorous teeth to the thief, who pointed a finger at Mosquito and gawked in surprise, his lower jaw moving slowly as he struggled to find words to express what he was feeling at the moment. “…I hate you!” was all that Sasha managed to sputter as the thought finally settled in that Mosquito was actually joining his older brother on this mission. The minutes deathly quiet minutes passed as Sasha and Mosquito glared at one another, nether one blinking to show any sign of weakness or fear against the other. Lypick and Seru seemed to break the tension-filled silence at precisely the same moment as both of them did what they normally did when complete and utter shock overwhelmed them; snort out in laughter. This seemed to lighten Sasha’s shock a bit, although he couldn’t help but feel as if he wasn’t wanted there as his onyx eyes slowly passed over Syra, who was now peeking curiously at him from behind Mosquito’s back, and onto Pisces, who’s expression was unsurprisingly blank, as it naturally was.
When no one said anything, the thief gladly crawled out of the crowded trunk and jumped off the side of the wagon beside Seru and Lypick. “Well I’m glad someone’s happy to see me.” he sang as Lypick settled down enough to give him a small appreciative nudge in the chest. Sasha happily caressed the stallion’s chin. “Hey boy! Did you miss me, huh? Did ya? Did ya? Oh you shoulda known I’d never let you leave without me!” Sasha sang foolishly as if he were speaking to an infant or a dog. The horse neighed happily once again, forcing Seru to replace his hysterical laughter with a weary smile. “You know Lypick?” he asked happily as he bounded over to Sasha’s side. “We’ve met.” the thief said with a sly smirk. “Oh that’s excellent! What do you think about him? He’s my pride and joy you know. A rare mix of Clydesdale and Unicorn… before they became extinct. Yes, Lypick’s been around for more than eight hundred years, although I can’t say the same for me, I’m only twenty four, sadly. Yeah he still has another century or two on his hide. And he really seems to like you! That’s pretty rare, normally he tends to hate everyone at first, hell he hated me for twenty three years!” Seru barked proudly, making the thief feel freaked out and a little more welcome. Did this guy even realize that Sasha had just randomly emerged from one of his cargo trunks?
It wasn’t long before Pisces came to his senses and made his way efficiently towards the opposite end of the wagon. “Sasha! What the hell are you doing?!” he cried in disbelief. The thief glanced around nervously. “Oh, uh…hey bro! SURPRISE!” he sang out loudly, making Mosquito flinch angrily. “What are you doing here?” the General asked, the urgency in his voice making it sound vaguely as if he were about to cry. “I decided at the last minute that I was going with you. I mean, I couldn’t let you have ALL the fun now could I? But isn’t this great? Now we can spend more of that quality time your always going on about together!” Sasha smiled broadly. Pisces glanced around at his comrades, all of which were now staring at the two in utmost amusement before grabbing his little brother violently by the elbow and dragging him several feet away from the horse. “Oh wow! Look, it’s all trees and grass… There’s no walls!” Sasha said excitedly as he gazed around at his surroundings. “Sasha!” Pisces spat, roughly releasing his grip on the thief’s arm. “Aww! It’s just as I imagined it would be, Pisces! Come on, lets go explore!” Sasha said yearningly. “You’re not going anywhere! Sasha…do you realize what you’ve just done? You left Karrin!!” the General shouted, making the thief rub his ear. “So? Just take him back.” Syra called sweetly, clearly recovering from the initial shock the thief had given her. Pisces breathed heavily in annoyance and panic. Obviously they weren’t as far away from the wagon as he thought. “Yeah Pisces, just take me back.” Sasha said in mock agreement. “You know damn well that I can’t just take you back!” the General said, rounding back on his younger brother. Seru sprung over to his captain and his little brother with Syra, Mosquito unhurriedly following them. “Why not? We’re only six hours away from Karrin, it’s not like we’d loose much time.” Seru said. Pisces sighed heavily. “It’s not that, its…” “It’s because if Pisces takes me back to Karrin they’d kill me on the spot.” Sasha interrupted. Seru and Syra shockingly gazed at the Ira brothers in unison. “It’s true. It doesn’t matter who I’m related to, once they figure out I left the city the Major himself will set out to have my head when I return.” Sasha shrugged. “That’s horrible!” Syra cried, making Mosquito roll his dark eyes.
“What are you going to do, General?” Seru asked. Pisces sighed and ran his fingers despairingly through his hair. “I don’t know.” he said quietly, staring almost sorrowfully at his younger brother, who was far more interested in the faint outline of the mountains in the distance than his own fate. “I say we take him back.” Mosquito muttered, causing everyone to glance at him. For someone that rarely shows any emotion, he somehow managed to give off a But That’s Just Me sort of look to answer all of their questionable gazes. “Pisces, I know you have no choice but to let me come with you, but just let me say that I really want to stay. I promise that I wont be a distraction and I wont interfere with anything. I don’t care about Alormai and I don’t care that your going to hate me for the rest of my life, I’m just going along for the ride. I’ll let you play your little military mission game with your buddies here in peace if you just let me watch, like we used to do when you were at the academy.” Sasha said as he looked Pisces imploringly in the eye. The General shook his head slowly and took out another much needed cigarette. “I don’t know.” he murmured, allowing the flames from his lighter to lick the front of his nose as he ignited his drug. “Pisces, please! Come on, you know how much I’ve longed for this! Look, you wont even know I’m here. I wont even ride on the wagon, I’ll walk behind it okay? God damnit. I dunno, just…please.” Sasha pleaded with the General one last time. Pisces took a long deliberate draw from his cigarette as he pondered over his little brother’s words. It seemed as if everyone but Mosquito had held their breath as the last puff of smoke wafted from between the General’s fine lips as he opened them to bring forth his final judgment. Syra secretly crossed her slender fingers, hopeful that Mosquito didn’t take any notice of what her hands were doing at this particular moment. “Fine, you can come with us. But just…be quiet.” Pisces said dully.
Sasha smirked furtively as he resisted the urge to jump up in the air and shout out in triumph. It was a fairly stupid, simple plan to escape Karrin next to all of the rather diabolically more adventurous ones he had always brewed up in the back of his mind, but it had worked. And how could it have failed? Despite however much repugnance Pisces had built up against his brother over the years, Sasha was positive that he wouldn’t send him back to Karrin, to his death, so easily. After all, no matter how much the General hated to admit it, Sasha was his own flesh and blood wasn’t he? There was no way he could simply exile him, although in a peculiar sense, wasn’t that what he had been doing for the last fifteen years?
~*~
The sun had finally began to slip beyond the distance mountain ridges in the west, blanketing Tashma under a glistening think sheet of ginger luminosity. The fragile trees that meagerly formed a loose forest beside the faint sanded trail seemed to scream out in agony as the sun’s ultimate brutal rays bleached away their naturally shady colors, forcing them to conceal themselves into their bystander’s sinister shadows. Sparrows from near and far began to wearily carry home the last of their kill to their kin, each carnivorous bird sending a shrill warning across the neon sky to one another, singing eerily about the owls and herons which were soon destined to come out to hunt. The winding earth was coming to a sudden standstill as its skies desperately awaited the festive arrival of their mystifying moon and its faithful diamond-like comrades. Dusk was gripping Tashma’s impassioned surface once again.
“Pisces LOOK!! It’s a deer!” Sasha wailed out excitedly, making Syra restrain a giggle. The General rolled his eyes as he dully watched the thief halt several feet behind the wagon and peer curiously into the forest. “Oh wait…false alarm, it was only a log!” Sasha informed his older brother as he raced back up to the wagon. The thief had been acting childishly all day, constantly stopping to enthusiastically point out a river or a squirrel. At first Pisces (and everyone else) had thought he was doing this to purposely annoy him, but it wasn’t until the General was absentmindedly reminded that this was the first time Sasha had been away from Karrin when he realized that this was also the fist time the thief had actually seen the tangible world. There was no wildlife or mountains inside the walls of the city, only concrete and a phony river with a name that meant prison in the Bishop tongue. And as much as it annoyed him, Pisces couldn’t really blame Sasha for dramatizing over the simplest of things, as he could distantly remember himself acting in the same manner seven years ago, although he would never admit it to Sasha.
“So what do you want to do, General? We’re still roughly forty miles from Bokaru, we could set up camp here if you’d like.” Seru said, thankfully breaking Pisces from his thoughts. “Right here’s fine Seru.” the General said as he examined the bare area to the right. Lypick came to a soothing stop with a simple flick of his reigns. “Oh yay! Does this mean we have time to make a decent dinner?” Syra asked as she and Mosquito followed Pisces off the wagon. “Sure does.” Seru called out happily, taking the ends of his stallion’s leather reigns and tying them securely around the trunk of a nearby scrawny tree. “Good, cause those rice balls didn’t do shit.” Pisces said dryly as he shook his pack of cigarettes to discover that he only had six left. Just as he was going to curse his miserable luck, a dull thud closely followed by a rather loud moan emitted from behind him. By Syra’s sweet laughter and the way Mosquito was shaking his head in utter disapproval, the General didn’t have to turn around to know that Sasha, who had been trotting distantly behind the carriage as promised, had been too distracted to realize that the wagon had stopped, therefore slamming right into the back of it. “This defiantly isn’t going to get me through the night.” Pisces muttered as he lit another pearly cigarette.
“So, is there any volunteers to go out and get firewood?” Seru asked, clapping his hands loudly together. “I will!” Sasha said eagerly as he raced up to join the group in a small huddle. “No you wont.” Pisces said flatly. “Why not?” Sasha asked in disbelief. “Because you’ll end up getting distracted and wandering off somewhere.” the General said. Normally Sasha would have taken this offensively, but at the moment it seemed as if nothing, including the General of F.A.L.S.E., could dampen his spirit. “I’ll do it.” Syra happily volunteered, “He can go with me and help me carry it.” she said, pointing a thumb over her shoulder at Sasha, who was staring disgustedly at a large spider eating a moth on a nearby tree limb. Just as Mosquito opened his mouth in disapproval, Seru wrapped one arm around his shoulder and another around the General’s. “Actually I think that’s a grand idea. I’ve been meaning to talk to you two alone.” Seru said rather quietly, glancing at Mosquito. He started blankly back at the farmer for a moment before hesitantly nodding in agreement. “Go Syra.” Mosquito said firmly after a while of silence. Syra nodded merrily and grabbed Sasha gently by the arm. “Come on, let’s get outta here.” she sang sweetly, reminding the thief vaguely of Tundra as she yanked him backwards into the naked forest.
“So what was your name again?” Syra asked as the two quickly distanced themselves away from the rest of the group. “Huh? Oh, it’s Sasha.” the thief said as he gazed up ahead at the tinted tree leaves. “Sasha…that’s pretty.” Syra smiled. Sasha resisted the urge to throw up at the mention of his name being pretty, although he had to admit that when she said it, it sounded rather enchanting. “If you say so.” he said quietly, knowing that the girl would probably go hysterical if she knew what his name really meant. “Well Sasha, that was some stunt you pulled back there.” she laughed, scanning the grounds for stray pieces of bark or wood. “Yeah, about that. I’m sorry if I startled you back there, I didn’t mean to.” the thief halfheartedly apologized, although he had to admit that the face she made when she realized there was a man in her trunk was absolutely priceless. “Oh no it’s okay! Really, I’m just thankful I found you before you suffocated.” Syra laughed, stopping to pick up a rather small sliver of bark. “Yeah so am I! The lack of air wasn’t really what was bothering me though, it was just that it was so damn crowded and hot. I swear I was starting to think that by the time someone discovered I was there my body would have taken the shape of the damn trunk.” Sasha said, making Syra laugh lightly. The two walked for a moment in silence, each letting their gaze trail off to the side of the mangled route before embarrassingly catching one in a small peek at the other. Sasha felt his face unintentionally turn red and turned his head to clear his throat. “You must really love your brother.” Syra said, catching the thief off guard. “W-What?” he said in astonishment at her random words. “Well I mean, you risked your life to be with him right? Isn’t that why you snuck out of the city?” she asked, pausing briefly to obtain a thick branch. “Hell no! I didn’t sneak outta Karrin for that bastard, I did it for myself. I mean you would too if you were being held captive in a place like that.” the thief said rather curtly. “No…I don’t think I would. Not if it was against the rules.” Syra said softly. Sasha resisted the urge to roll his eyes. She was just like everyone else in Karrin. “Would you really rather be cooped up in a stuffy town like Karrin than miss out on all this?” the thief asked dreamily as he gazed off into the distance. Syra followed his intense gaze, wondering if he had been looking at something that she wasn’t able to see. “I don’t know. Sure it’s great to get out and stuff but… at least you’re safe in Karrin.” she said as firmly as possible. Sasha cocked an eyebrow. “I guess so. But it’s so much better out here! You’re living on the wild side, never knowing what could happen next. Sure it may be dangerous but it’s exciting!” he said enthusiastically. “How is that exciting?” Syra laughed, stopping to pick up yet another stray branch. “I…uh…I don’t really know.” Sasha said, feeling a little stupid for failing to think things over before he said them. Syra smiled and shook her head. “Well you can think about it while you help me look for firewood.” she laughed, noting Sasha’s vacant hands. “Maybe I will.” the thief smirked, taking a piece of bark from the small pile in her hands.
Nearly an hour had passed before the two decided that they had gathered a fair amount of wood to contribute to the fire. As Sasha spent more and more time talking to Syra, his curious new surroundings began to slowly slip from his mind. He didn’t know what exactly attracted him to her so much. His original excuse would have been her foreign accent and angelic beauty, but strangely that didn’t quite seem to do it justice. There was just something about her personality, her free spirit, that caught his attention. Here was a person who had never lived her life in enslavement. She had been born free, her spirit just as wild and untamed as his, for there was never a brick wall separating her from the rest of the world. For the first time in his life, Sasha was interacting with someone who was more like him than he could have ever imagined. For the first time, he was talking to someone who understood him.
Syra’s virtuous laugh echoed through the bare forest as Sasha shared stories of the bizarre troubles he faced while simply trying to steal a decent lunch with her, lifting the thief’s spirits higher than he thought was possible. “And Mattick, oh man this guy is great, a real character that one is, he’s real hefty and awfully mean…kinda like a hippopotamus. Anyways, he’s the best merchant to take something from. He’s wheat tastes like shit and everyone knows it, so all you really gotta do is insult him and he gets pissed off. I just take stuff from his shop to see him run after me. It’s the funniest thing you’ll ever see in your entire life! Oh man you really got to see it to know what I mean when I say that guy runs like a walrus with it’s ass caught on fire.” Sasha barked, making Syra erupt into even more violent giggles until her voice grew husky. “Oh my god.” she sighed, “You’re terrible! Stealing other people’s stuff just to see them get pissed off…I’m surprised you were never arrested or locked up- Sasha? What’s wrong?” Syra asked. The thief had stopped dead in his tracks, his onyx eyes wide and filled with a hunger-like gaze. And although his expressionless face was bleached orange from the sun, Syra could tell that the color had drained from it completely. She was just about to ask him what was wrong again when Sasha dropped his mound of wood with a dull thud and raced ahead of her. “Sasha! Where are you going?” she cried, quickly setting down her pile of branches next to his scattered one and chasing after him.
Sasha ran as fast as his legs would allow him to. “How could I be so stupid?” he muttered under his breath. The thought hadn’t even struck him that he had just left Syra without an exclamation. For that brief moment, everything vanished. All he wanted to do, all he wanted to think about, was getting as close to it as possible. There was nothing standing in his way anymore. There was no busy people to push past, no authorities to avoid, and most importantly, no wall to stop him from reaching it. The wind nearly lifted his feet from the ground as he raced towards the end of the steep hill, the only thing breaking his most likely fatal fall being a wide tree to his left. Sasha wrapped his arms tightly around its trunk to prevent him from flying down the slope, his legs flinging loosely in front of his body as he swiftly broke his fall. His breath caught as he found his feet and stabled himself against the tree, although it hadn’t been the abrupt halt that made his thrashing heart skip a beat, but the sight that lied just beyond the reach of his fingertips.
Sasha’s heart swelled up dangerously in awe. The thief had never seen the sunset before…never. Nighttime had always been established when the giant neon globe disappeared behind the height of Karrin’s gloomy brick wall, which the giant clock tower on the east side of the city had always indicated was only six ’o’ clock, nearly two hours before the sun really set. But still, Sasha could have never imagined that the real twilight would be so…beautiful. A mere ring of the sun’s illuminating orb peeked from behind two mountain ridges, painting everything it was forced to say goodbye to a rich color of blonde and auburn. The river below shimmered intensely under the last of the sun’s warm rays, little specks of gold dancing freely upon its blinding surface. The dense forest that outlined the bottom of the mountains had been drowned in the mammoth crag’s shadow, which somehow caused the flaxen valleys that lied before them to appear even more captivating than grass could ever be allowed to be. The world had been tainted into warmth, beckoning out its true fashion; one of welcome and serenity that it clandestinely hid from the Gods watchful eyes, for an angel had secretly placed a slice of heaven right on Earth.
“Sasha! What are you doing?” Syra panted as she slid next to the thief’s side. Sasha remained silent as he gawked into the sunset, making Syra wonder if he had realized she was there. Although he was perfectly aware of her being at his side, Sasha couldn’t help but ignore her, as all he could think about was how much he wanted Tundra to be there to see this with him. Syra peered into the west for a while as she tried to figure out what on Earth the thief was staring at, but all she saw was the sun slipping away to make space for the moon to replace its rightful position in the sky. “Come on, we gotta head back before they start to wonder where we-” “This is why it’s exciting.” Sasha whispered, making Syra cock an eyebrow. “It’s exciting because you’re free.”
...yup and that was chapter 11 ^_^