Solo Lost To Home

[Colt]

48th of winter, 515 a.v.
midday

He couldn't move.

Chaos. The screams of men and horses, women and children ripped away from one another. Someone shouting his name, desperate, pleading––Naiya?––from across an ocean of terror and confusion. Akaidras cried out as the hooves were swept from under them both, Snow rushing to his side, and then the cruel ropes of the net settling over them.

His body wouldn't obey him.

Stink and sweat, huddling crouched in the reeking darkness of the brig. Snow in a cage, doing her best to be the good dog to their enemies, while on the inside they were both on fire at the injustice as the pirates beat and raped to their hearts' content, and at their helplessness to do anything but keep their heads down and play the role of the obedient servants.

Nothing obeyed him. He was weaponless, powerless, rendered unable to fight by the disease creeping through his body, disease that ate away at his senses until he couldn't tell the difference between the past and the present.

Beating them, chasing them; the pirates were gods in their own ship, and they knew it. The girl and her boy came to him out of fear; together, at least, their misery was shared. They were running, and there was blood on their hands, and they didn't know where they were going. There was fear, but there was also blazing anger; this was their rebellion. They snatched their lives back from the jaws of the wicked, and they ran even though they couldn't see where they were going.

Noise. Strained breathing. Rustling beasts too large to be allowed. Birds, animals, screeching and cawing. A sharp flavor on his lips, unfamiliar and biting.

Their surroundings were nothing but blending shadows. The shadows leered, waving phantom swords and pulling at them. All they knew for certain was the ground beneath their feet as they took one step after another. They heard nothing. They heard everything. White noise filled their ears with rushing blood and the screams of men and horses and pirates.

There was earth beneath his skin. There was sweat on his brow. Something was wrong with his shoulder; he couldn't feel his fingers.

Snow was the strongest. By the end, all he could do was follow her presence, through whipping leaves and tugging branches. The end was swift, taking all the time in the world and taking no time at all. There was simply pain, the muffled sound of voices, Snow's pain in his mind as she fought to defend her master. The pirates had caught up to them, he was sure of it. There was nothing else it could be. He was tired of running. All he wanted to do was rest.

Pirates––running––the Snowhunts––Snow?––they had come back for them. No! He couldn't let them take him! Shahar struggled, lashing out with foot and fist. He connected with flesh, knocking them back, striking them away. Someone was over him, over his head, his mouth, and the scurvy still blurred them so he couldn't see. Large, salty, pirate; he wouldn't let them take him back! He would die first!

He would kill them before he let them win!

[Colt]

The man fell back with a startled yelp as Shahar punched him in the chest. It was more of a surprise than an actual strike; the Witch's knuckle connected with bare flesh, but it was clumsy and wild. As for the man he had punched, well––Shahar was not the stronger of the two.

The dark-skinned man dropped the orange ball in his hand and leaped forward, taking hold of Shahar's flailing wrists and pinning him into the hard-packed dirt. Shahar struggled, driving his heels into the earth to claim traction, writhing to throw his attacker off, but could do nothing to resist; the man on top of him had played this game more than once, and kept him on the ground. Shahar's body was too weak, his limbs hollow; the journey from Cyphrus had taken its toll. There was sickness inside him, and that sickness had already eaten at whatever strength he had managed to keep after the escape.

No! Snow's presence in his mind was immediate. He could hear her barking, beyond the blurry haze of colors that was all he could see of the rest of the world. He called out for her, in name, in thought, in heart; he couldn't fight them off. He couldn't get free.

Stop! He could see the flash of her white fur, and then her eyes were looming over the stranger's shoulder. The stranger tensed suddenly, freezing in place. But Snow did not open her jaws. She was not attacking anyone.

Calm. It was an unfamiliar thought, coming from her, but it was unmistakeable. Comfort. She wanted him to stop struggling. Safe.

He didn't want to. He was trapped. He needed to get free. Fear.

Calm. She came closer, licking gently at his forehead.

The stranger wasn't injuring him.

Safe, she said.

He had to trust her. If he couldn’t trust Snow, then what else could he trust? Against all of his instincts, Shahar forced himself to relax. He waited for the man on top of him to reach for his throat, to tie up his hands, to drag him back to bilge and iron and stink, because that was what non-Drykas did.

“Finish?” The word was stilted and thickly accented, such that it took a few moments to register it as Common.

His vision was clearing, slowly, although blinking didn’t do much to speed it up. The Drykas closed his eyes, trying to summon up what he knew of the Common tongue. “Who?” was the best he could manage.

The man on top of him shifted, warily slackening his grip on Shahar’s wrists.

Calm, Snow reiterated.

Shahar coughed as blood poured into his head and a wave of blistering heat coursed through his body. His throat convulsed and he could taste bile on his tongue, but there wasn’t enough in his stomach to vomit up; the Witch rolled to his side, gagging, but there was nothing to throw up.

“You badly,” the strange man said. “Hence, the ground.”

Snow settled herself against Shahar’s back, licking his shoulder in worry. Whatever events had led them… wherever they were, she trusted the stranger not to hurt them.

Snow trusted the stranger.

And Shahar had to trust Snow.

[Colt]

The stranger said something else, something in a harsh, gutteral language that Shahar had never heard before. He took the Drykas by the arm and turned him over, holding out a hand with a soft orange ball in clear offering.

“Take,” the man said. “Eat.”

Shahar looked at the man, looked at his gift, then warily attempted to take it––attempted, and failed, as his arms were to weak to even lift above his knees.

Sighing, the man set the thing on the ground and reached for the undersides of Shahar’s arms, hoisting him up. Shahar struggled, despite Snow asking him again to stop, but could still do nothing against the entirely healthy, muscular man that was the dark-skinned stranger. Their destination was a wall, apparently, a wall that Shahar was propped up against to avoid falling over. Sitting up made him dizzy, but the tough hands of the stranger kept him from pitching forward.

More harsh, unknown words, and the man took the orange ball back up and expertly ripped it in half with a soft sound that reminded Shahar of ripping flesh. The man tore it again––as focus returned to his eyes, the Witch could see that it was a ball of several small, soft segments––and eventually held out the smallest portion. His face looked somewhat annoyed, but he was kind enough to physically place the thing on Shahar’s tongue before pushing his mouth closed uncomfortably.

Teeth pierced the skin of the fruit, and it was both sweet and acidic. The sensation of food managed to clear away the confused haze of the moment, enough for Shahar to at least chew; the segment was gone and swallowed within heartbeats, and without thinking the Witch reached out and took the rest of the fruit from the man’s hand. Strength returned with the prospect of nourishment, but he didn’t bother to tear it into segments; the two almost-halves were relatively large, and so he simply bit into them as he might bite into an apple. Juice soaked his fingers and ran down his chin, but his hunger was coming to the fore, as well as a deeper, different craving; somehow, of all the foods he could have been given, the orange was exactly what he wanted––no, needed––at that precise moment.

The stranger sat back on his heels, observing with some degree of satisfaction as Shahar finished the orange and licked the remains from his hands. Sensibility was returning, although vision wasn’t; the Drykas looked at the man, tilted his head and nodded gratefully. He didn’t expect the man to know the sign, but he didn’t know the Common word.

The man seemed to understand all the same, and nodded back. He reached for something at his belt––a waterskin, painted red and decorated with bones––and held it out. Shahar lowered his eyes in a show of respect and accepted it gratefully.

The water was bitter, but it was water. He thought he could feel bits of plant floating around, but thought little of it. Perhaps it was tea? Whatever the case, he was incredibly thirsty, and couldn’t care less what it tasted like as long as it wasn’t seawater.

The man took it back before Shahar had even finished half of it, shaking his head. He spoke again in his guttural language, but seemed to have as small a grasp on Common as Shahar did, and eventually huffed in frustration. He stood, returning the waterskin to his belt.

Shahar shifted, trying to follow. The man shook his head, and said one word, firm and demanding, and pushed the Witch’s shoulders back to the wall. He said the word again.

Shahar frowned in concentration, and then repeated the word back. “Stay.”

The man paused, but after a moment he nodded. “Stay.” He pointed at Shahar. “You, stay.”

Shahar pointed at himself. “You, stay?”

The man shook his head. Another new word. “No. You, ‘I stay.’”

“You I stay?”

“No. I stay.”

“I stay?”

“Yes!”

The Drykas pointed at himself again. “Shahar, stay.” He frowned again, pointed at the stranger, and made a leap regarding another one of the words. “No… you… stay. You, no, stay?”

The stranger stepped back, leveling a calculating gaze. “I no stay.” He pointed at himself. “Itxec, no stay.”

Itxec. Shahar nodded in understanding; having a name somehow made the man seem less threatening. Less alien. He understood, at least, that he was to remain here, while Itxec was to go somewhere else; although the world remained foggy, he could tell that he was in a building of some sort, and that there was a doorway on the far wall that Itxec was moving towards. No, not a real doorway; there wasn’t any door. It was an opening in the wall, with what appeared to be a semi-transparent cloth draped across to provide the illusion of privacy. It was unfamiliar. It was foreign. His entire experience was like nothing he had ever seen before.

But for now, with Snow at his side, at least he appeared to be safe.

[Colt]

Shahar didn’t recall falling asleep, but now he was suddenly waking up. He was disoriented, head full of vague buzzing noises; Snow shifted beside him, aware of his consciousness and his discomfort. As before, she gave him comfort and worry, and her presence grounded him in the reality of the physical world.

It was darker; that much he could tell for certain. He had a headache, and he couldn’t feel his body, but he could see. A few moments of adjusting, and he could locate the doorway, now faintly outlined by the moonlight slanting inside. The building they were in--or rather, the hut--was longer than it was wide, four-sided and roughly rectangular. The floor was packed dirt, covered with long, dried grass. Straw? No, it was something different. Something unfamiliar.

It took a moment for the Witch to realize exactly why he had woken up. He could hear breathing. Although he could feel the gentle rising of Snow’s body with her breath, the sound was not coming from her; of the two of them, she was the least ill.

When he tried to move, he became aware of two things. First, his limbs were still weak, shaking violently with every movement. And second, he was entirely drenched in sweat.

Snow whined softly as Shahar muscled through the shaking and dragged himself to his knees. The air was unbearably humid, as thick against his throat as water. Every breath was a labor, and within moments of rising his vision was clouded by swirling black and purple, forcing him to lay back down to keep conscious. Snow pushed her nose under his neck, licking at his sweat in concern.

The loud wheezing had gotten no closer, but he could tell where it was now. It was farther along the wall, at the very edge of the room, and, wait… there was more than one.

That. Shahar brought his partner’s attention to the noise.

Friend. Images flashed through his mind. Faces. Bodies. Clothes. Smells. A tall, brown-haired woman. A small, dark-haired boy.

“Snowhunt?” his throat was ragged and his voice little more than a whisper, but he could speak. The bitter tea Itxec had given him was still lingering on his tongue, overlain with the strange tanginess of the fruit.

There was a pause in the wheezing, and a shift in mass. Shahar dug his nails into the hard earth of the floor and dragged himself towards it, Snow trailing behind him uncertainly.

“Snowhunt.” He was almost to her, but he wasn’t going to make the mistake of sitting up again.

Something touched his hand. Soft. Warm. Too warm. He wrapped his fingers around her ankle, which was burning with fever.

Beyond it, he could hear an impotent breath of air that didn’t have the strength to form words.

“We’re alright,” he rasped, letting himself drop back to the floor. “Don’t speak.” Against her skin he tapped exhausted, no danger. “They didn’t catch us.”

Another attempt at speaking.

Shahar shook his head. No. “Stop talking. Sleep.” Need to rest. “I don’t know where we are. There is a man. His name is Itxec. He has taken care of us. I think this is his home. We will be safe until morning.”

She did not respond, but still did not quite let herself relax. She couldn’t speak, and so Shahar had no idea what she might be thinking, whether she was still addled by sickness, if he would wake up to find her gone––but right now, he didn’t have the energy to care.

Without enough strength to return to his own spot, Shahar released her ankle and lay down right where he was. Snow let out another whine, softer this time, and settled down at his side again. He couldn’t think. He couldn’t plan. He couldn’t wonder. The short trip to the Snowhunts had left him utterly exhausted, but that was alright. They were no longer on the ship. They were no longer with the pirates.

They had made it away.

[Colt]

He was woken by the sharp scent of acidic fruit and harsh, gutteral words; Itxec wasn’t particularly interested in starting another scuffle, and so he let his voice do the work of dragging Shahar back into the realm of the waking.

The medicine man sat cross-legged before the Witch, more orange spheres in his possession. Upon seeing Shahar rise, the dark-skinned stranger held one of the spheres out. Shahar took it hungrily, his desperation for food overcoming his sense of respect and decency; he didn’t even bother to tear the segments apart, instead biting straight into the fruit as he might have bitten into an apple.

Juice coated his fingers and ran down his chin, but the taste of the fiber managed to clear his mind. Halfway through the thing, he was able to think clearly enough to pause, look straight at Itxec and dip his head respectfully.

“Thank you,” he said. He had little hope of Itxec understanding Pavi, but the gesture would hopefully speak for itself in way of his intentions.

“Thank you,” Itxec replied, shaking his head. “Thank you.” He pointed at Shahar, then himself. “Thank you.”

Shahar tilted his head. “Thank you?”

Itxec nodded. “Thank you.”

“Thank you.”

He shook his head, unsatisfied with the pronunciation. “Thank you.”

The Witch tried again. “Thank you.”

“Thank you.”

“Thank you.”

Itxec frowned, then shrugged and muttered something intelligible. Whether or not Shahar had gotten close, he didn’t know, but the stranger clearly didn’t want to spend any more time on it. Standing, Itxec left Shahar to his fruit and made his way to the door.

“Go you,” Shahar said.

Itxec paused and looked back.

“Stay I,” he continued.

Itxec opened his mouth, thought better of it, closed it, and nodded. He said something else, and Shahar imagined it to mean ‘yes,’ and then he stepped out of the building.

Snow butted the crown of her head under Shahar’s shoulder, relieved that he was awake and lucid. Through her relief, though, Shahar could feel pain––not of the emotional sort, but of the physical. Of the heat. Because now that he was aware of his surroundings, it was hot. It was thick and sticky and sweaty, like summer, only it was also wet; it had been less pronounced in the night, but now it was poignant and heavy, and it felt like he would drown if he breathed too deeply. Instinctively, however, he knew that his own discomfort was nothing compared to what Snow was feeling, as she did not have the ability to take off her fur as Shahar could take off his shirt.

Pulling Snow close to him, Shahar breathed into his partner’s neck. Love.

Hope.

It was also noisy. Beyond the walls of the building, it was as if the entire world was filled with animals; birds cawed, louder than he had ever heard any Cyphrus bird scream, along with the howling of not-wolves and the buzz of insects. The Pride of the Amethyst did not make such noise, even on the most disruptive of days. Was there an entire city of animals waiting outside the door?

He wanted to know where he was, and that desire was enough to make him wonder where he had been, before he was here and after he had escaped. With a jolt, Shahar remembered his band; dragging forth what little strength his rest had given him, the Witch clawed at the ragged and decaying boots on his feet, peeling away the salty leather until––yes, there, he could see the familiar ring of material, and the thin gray shape of the feather attached. He unfastened the armband from his ankle and held it close to his chest. It was still with him. It was intact, the precious feather and hair still trapped securely. Something hard and hot welled up in his throat, choking him. He swallowed and felt his eyes begin to burn with tears.

No. He couldn’t. Not yet. Not until he knew where he was. The two Snowhunts; he had to make sure all three of them were safe. He needed to know where they were. The sounds, the building, Itxec; he tried to synthesize it all into an explanation.

It was a city of some sort. There were voices outside the door, although he couldn’t see; from within the darkness of the building, the doorway was a featureless rectangle of bright white light. And inside that light were footsteps, and words made by human tongues––a joke, they must have been, because there was a quick, feminine laugh before the footsteps disappeared into the distant cacophony of the animals.

No, not entirely disappeared; there were still footsteps. More footsteps. New footsteps? Many footsteps, hurried, heavy, no laughter at all. They emerged from the noise, and these ones were coming towards them.

Itxec was returning. And this time, he wasn’t alone.

[Colt]

Itxec entered the shelter, followed by two women, as dark-skinned as he but still utterly alien to the displaced Drykas. For one, the woman were taller than any Shahar had ever seen before; he wondered if they would be level with him if he stood. They were also far more decorated than Itxec, and their decorations were grisly; they were both almost entirely covered in elaborate weaves of bones and teeth––animal and human. The larger of the two had an entire human skull bouncing at her hip with every step, flanked by the skull of what appeared to be an eagle and another of a cat of some sort. And they were both well-armed, if their appearances weren’t enough; one with a spear, the other with a sword, and both with a wide assortment of knives, ropes and items that Shahar thought were weapons, but were too foreign and strange to even come close to identifying.

Itxec pointed at him and said something to the women, who tilted their heads and narrowed their eyes. Snow pinned her ears, nervous; these women were not like Itxec. They were strangers to her. She did not trust them.

“Up,” the larger woman said, jerking the butt of her spear on the ground to add emphasis.

Shahar just looked at her, not entirely certain what she was asking.

“Stand,” Itxec supplemented, but the surreal nature of the situation made it turn to nonsense in his ears. Being told to stand felt like such an… unreal request, after everything that had happened. Itxec might as well have told him to juggle knives, or to change the color of the sky; the thought that this dark-skinned, bone-clad medicine man desired Shahar to do something was practically incomprehensible.

The women, however, were less inclined to negotiate. Like lightning, the one with the spear flashed forward, grabbed Shahar by the arm and yanked him to his feet.

Behind his eyes, the world exploded. The ringing sound of metal beating metal, the acrid stench of offal mixed with death and rats. The slavekeeper grabbing him to stop his interference. He reacted on instinct.

The woman grunted when his fist connected with her abdomen, not at all expecting him to lash out. It was less than a heartbeat before her own fist was sailing back at him, sinking into his chest and rattling every bone in his body with enough force to topple a Seme. Snow was barking, the other woman was subduing her, while his own assailant had managed to shove her spear against his chest to place the tip just underneath his throat. He twisted as she stepped through his guard, too close to punch, and so he brought his knee up to strike her inner thigh; the movement scraped the underside of his chin against her speartip, slicing a shallow path through the skin, but he managed to connect with her. She hissed, more out of annoyance than actual pain, and pressed against him, tangling his legs with hers and pinning him thoroughly against the wall. With nothing else left available, Shahar twisted and bit down into the flesh of her shoulder.

Naturally, she felt that the appropriate response was to rear back, angle her face and bring her forehead crashing down onto his nose.

For a moment, the world went white. Pain exploded through his head, dwarfing all other sensations; distantly, as if it wasn’t even his own body, he could feel the energy leave his limbs. He went limp on his feet, supported by the wall and by the woman but nothing else.

Through the ringing in his ears, he could hear voices. Shouting. More people coming into the hut. The woman stepped back, giving him space, and he promptly fell to his knees, rocking forward to brace his hands against the floor as blood rushed through––and out––of his head.

The voices were stopping, and there was something else. There was a ringing, a second ringing, and it wasn’t coming from his head or his ears. It was an inside-ringing, made of emotions and instincts. It made his right arm twitch, enticing the mark that lay there. Recognition. Acknowledgement. Something divine was in the air. Something of Caiyha.

He shook his head in an attempt to get the ringing out, but all that accomplished was to toss around some of the blood that was streaming from his nose. His ears were clearing up now; he could hear that no one was talking anymore. Blinking away the clouds in his vision, Shahar gritted his teeth against the pounding in his skull and looked up.

Snow was snarling, pinned to the ground by Itxec’s other companion. He was now in the company of five strangers; in addition to the medicine man and two women, there was an older, more stooped man that was still equally as armed and decorated as the women. It was the eldest woman of all, however, the fifth of their number, that immediately draw Shahar’s attention.

At first he didn’t what it was that drew him to her. If asked, he wouldn’t have been able to even guess at her age; she was weathered, for certain, but was still filled with an undeniable strength. Her skin was wrinkled, her limbs thin, but her eyes…

Her eyes were strong. And they recognized him.

Just as his recognized her.

Their eyes met, and suddenly there was no barrier. Languages fell away into half-formed child’s noises that could never capture the true meaning of communication. Their eyes met, and communication was instant.

She was strong. She was cruel. She was kind. She was ankal.

She was Witch.

[Colt]

You are unwell. In the direct nature of Nura, greetings and hellos were unnecessary and useless.

Yes. A child could have seen that. I’ve been… he didn’t have to differentiate. The slavers, the sickness, the fight with the dark-skinned woman; he could make all of those one word. … hurt. The single thought was all of them at once.

You hit her. She hit you back. You don’t like fights, don’t start one.

Shahar sat back against the rough material of the wall, touching his bloody nose gingerly. Where am I? he asked.

Our home. Then, knowing that such an answer wasn’t greatly helpful, she became more specific. She knew that the knowledge of the land was more important than the knowledge of the people, so that was what she gave him first. His mind was flooded with images of her home: trees as tall as the rivers were wide, worlds below them, worlds between them and worlds above them. Monkeys, ants, rodents, jaguars, head-sized spiders, jeweled frogs; this was not his land, and so he couldn’t comprehend the full depth, but she still could give him the deep sense of where. Near the ocean, in a forest that was so full of life that animals had to travel skyward like the plants. He hadn’t known there was so much green in the entire universe.

There was no trace of the golden ocean of Cyphrus, his dear and loving ward. With little hope, Shahar returned the favor and told her where he was from. His world was as foreign to her as hers was to him; she had never seen it, never heard of it and had no knowledge of it the wide, never-ending plains, or the great herds of zibri, or the glassbeak or the olidosapaux. His chest echoed with the aching loss of what was no longer around him, and there was a degree of sympathy from the other Witch as she sensed his pain.

Shahar needed a moment to gather himself back up, but then he kept going. Who are you?

She needed to pause at that, to summon up the proper response. I am… she gave him her name, her out-loud name, syllable by syllable. Cer-ti-lop.

“Certilop?” Shahar repeated.

The other four looked at him as if he had grown a second head. Shahar realized that it must have been a strange thing for them to hear, coming from someone who had never met them before. Looking from the outside, Shahar and the old woman Certilop had just been staring at one another for ticks on end, leaving the rest of the hut in awkward silence as Certilop’s companions waited for either one of the Witches to do something.

Certilop chuckled, waved her hand and spoke more of that gutteral language, and although the four did not seem eased, her words rooted them in place. She returned her gaze to Shahar, and they continued their conversation.

This is my clan. Her word for ‘clan’ was not quite the same as his; her word came alongside more images, this time of buildings settled together, filled with men and women and children. It was an extended family, but also an identity; to an individual, in Certilop’s words, ‘clan’ meant something similar to ‘pavilion,’ only much bigger. Our name is Leaping Fish.

“Leaping Fish.” Shahar was repeating many words today.

Certilop shook her head. Wrong words. Leaping Fish. She sounded out the words for him, as she had with her name.

“Cer-ti-lop.” It felt odd on the tongue. “Lea-ping Fish.”

You sound bad.

Sorry. You lead Leaping Fish?

Yes. I am leader. Inside his own head, the emotion translated to ankal.

Shahar dipped his head in new respect; he was still confused and hurting, but he was getting a better sense of his place now that he knew her to be the leader. This was her home, her family, her belongings; she was giving him her hospitality freely, and so it would be best to conduct himself as a grateful guest.

You are lost, Certilop observed.

Shahar laughed––actually laughed––although there was no amusement in the sound. The laugh was bitter and cynical, devoid of mirth. Yes.

You need help. It wasn’t just an observation; beneath it was the distinctly visible offer to help.

He tilted his head. I need help. But how can you help me?

How do you need help?

There had been many times in the past that Shahar hadn’t known an answer until he had been asked the right question. Hours past, in the night, in the haze of scurvy, even in the depths of the ship, he hadn’t even thought about what he needed, or where he would go, or what the future would throw at him; before, all he could afford to care about was the present moment, the immediate dangers of food and slavers and escaping. But at Certilop’s question, a fire exploded in Shahar’s chest, surging up from his abdomen; it was made of anger, it was made of humiliation, it was made of pain, but above all, it was made of heavy, white-hot determination. I need to get home. His thoughts organized themselves as he communicated, spilling towards Certilop as soon as they occurred to him. I need to travel. I need to know where I am. I need to know where home is.

Certilop cut into him with her eyes, halting him before he began rambling. You need to heal, she said, no longer as a Witch, but as an ankal. It was firm and certain, like a mother telling their child to go to bed, and left no room for argument.

I need to go home.

Certilop turned and said something to Itxec, who said something back. Certilop returned to Shahar. Two more days. You have the ocean sickness, and so do your woman and child.

The Snowhunts. Yes, they were of concern, weren’t they?

Certilop continued. Two days. Eat oranges. The fruit Itxec had been giving him. That is best to defeat the sickness. Then travel. There is a city deeper in the jungle. Get there, and you can find what you will need.

Shahar sighed, a weary frown pulling at the corners of his mouth. Two days.

Listen to Itxec. He will make you strong.

He thinks we are strange, staring at each other in silence.

Yes. But it is not his place to judge it. Certilop shifted, conveying in her posture that she was ready to end the dialogue. Rest, brother. Caiyha’s children will have my help. The strong survive. The weak perish. Ours is a strong clan. No harm will come to you here. So long as you don’t start any more fights.

She turned, bringing an abrupt close as their gazes separated. The two women and the man, having endured ticks of awkward silence, were quite happy to follow her out of the hut, leaving behind Shahar, Snow, Itxec and the still-sleeping Snowhunts.

He was lost. He was sick. As much as he hated having to, he needed to rest. There was a city; if he could get to that city, he could figure out where he was, and then he could figure out where he needed to go.

Itxec had come armed with more oranges, one for Shahar, and one for each of the other two. Snow, pained by the encounter but not injured, returned to his side.

There was a journey ahead of them, that was for absolute certain. He didn’t know how long it was, because he didn’t know where he was, but that didn’t matter. Not anymore. If he needed to travel the entire world, that was what he would do.

His fist tightened around the armband.

I will find you, Naiya.

- End -

[Izuyanai]

Secret : Grades Name: Colt XP: Unarmed Combat +2 Anthropology +3 Endurance +1 Lores: The Hardships of a Pirate’s Ship Body Language: Repect and Beginner’s Communication in Common Itxec: Member of Leaping Fish Certilop: Witch Leader of Leaping Fish Ocean Sickness: Oranges Are the Best Cure Notes: Very exciting thread! I loved the way you handled all the communication difficulties. Let me know if you think I’ve missed something.