by Marc Mulero
Suspicion overtook him. Sudden, irrational jealousy panged in his gut. One wouldn’t be so understanding without their own “happenings.” What had he missed? Was she betrothed? Already?
“What are you hinting at?” He pulled back his hand casually and reached for something in his bag.
She noticed the shift in tone and body language. “N-nothing. All I mean is that much time has passed, and if we were to be friends again, I wouldn’t want the lapse in between to get in our way.”
Friends? Could such a crazy notion work?
“Being a Carrier in the Scarred Lands was something I dreamt of since I was a child. And to think that so many shortcuts landed me here before even becoming a proper adult. But I would drop it all to aid you on your quest, Eres. I have skills that can be of use. I owe it to you for the time you lost.”
“You owe me nothing!” He lifted himself off the ground and onto his feet. “You risked too much and suffered my stupidity twice now. Stay here, where you belong. I’m no charity case, either. I’ll be fine.”
Windel rose slowly to offset his fire. “I can take sabbatical. It would be no risk on my end. I want to come.”
“You can’t-“
“Why not? We’re speaking to each other, now, in this impossible situation. Futopi. And you would toss it over your shoulder like some crumpled piece of paper?”
Upon looking into her hopeful eyes, Windel’s beauty became more apparent. The fine details were easy to focus on - smooth skin despite harsh conditions. Big, gentle eyes that could light up with fire when she needed them to. Flowing hair that would put any man into a trance. She was of traditional beauty, in direct conflict with Ohndee’s rebellious flare. And he stopped taking all of it for granted, here, now. But why? Was this to be their last encounter? He had to tell her…
He finally found the courage to blurt it out. “There’s someone else.”
She smiled to hide some kind of pain, he thought. Eyes lost contact for less than a second so she could process it, but she too found courage. “How could there not be? Friends, I said. Let me come with you.”
“Funny. I was thinking the same would be true for you.”
“Me?” She laughed awkwardly and then spread her arms to present herself. Glite, gadgets, daggers, and all. “I’m busy.”
Eres relaxed, fully aware of the defiant double standard he was exercising in his mind. Why would he be able to have a Dawnfriend, and it be okay, and her not have a boyfriend? Did she feel like he did? Was she jealous? Upset? All of this complication made him forget about the dire situation at hand.
“So. What now?” she persisted, readying herself to follow along.
He didn’t object again. How could he? She wasn’t only his childhood crush, but one of his oldest friends. So instead, he focused on the mission.
“I’m to travel far west into the mountains, where I’m to rendezvous with the Alga Menace Fie, my pilot, Ilfrid’s, shider. My mission was just to identify the package, not interfere. So I succeeded, kind of. But I have a feeling we just took a massive blow. I have no idea whose esper that was, how close that puts the enemy to compiling the secret, or how deep his network runs, but I do know one thing. Did you notice something about Seren, or something he’s lacking, rather?”
Windel thought hard as they both began to glide west. “Double-sided multi-Cruled blade,” she muttered, “wasn’t lacking anything there. Some high-powered impeller. Hmm… his espers? He has many, but we knew that already. One for every Skrol he killed, right?”
“Right. And there was someone who I expected to already be dead.”
Windel’s face froze in surprise. “Proctor Wudon!”
“Right! He wasn’t wearing the Dark esper anywhere I could see. Not on his fingers, where he seems to wear them all, and not around his neck like Wudon wore. It means he’s not yet nearing the end.” His face turned serious. “I’m supposed to continue my Skrol training. The Judicator told me so.”
“You met the Judicator!?”
“Oh yeah, we still have a lot to catch up on. Masarian Bo gave me direction, but if Wudon’s still alive… I think my fata would want me to find him. To save him.”
“Mustae.”
Chapter 22
A Herald’s Decision
Flenos boots slid across the Scarred Lands the same way ice skates would ice. They had spoken for hours, Eres and Windel, until they were formally reacquainted and somewhat forgiven. Friends again, for better or worse, and now they were headed westward to Ilfrid’s shider, to another crossroads that would further define his destiny. It seemed he was beating his own path, or skidding it rather, with gliding boots and a windy wake.
His party grew by one against the way of the Skrols. Instead of secluding himself, he was surrounding himself. Foolish, Masarian would say. Irresponsible, his ooma would shake her head. Disappointing, he could see his father turning his back. But he needed help… surely everyone would understand that.
He watched her sway her hips rhythmically and then leap into the air to avoid a broadening fissure before resuming her graceful dance across the land. Another hop over an impassible horizontal line before lengthening her stride once more made him nearly trip. She was agile and beautiful, making it difficult for him to look away. How much five years had done for Windel to come into her own. And he hadn’t forgotten that she’d also become a killer, like him. Improper adults carrying out duties that even the oldest beings shouldn’t. Tools bred for war.
Had Ohndee ever taken life? Eres was annoyed with himself. Why are you comparing? She is your nooch, not Windel.
Silently, Eres tried to mirror her form, to be nimble so maybe one day he could have more than a single way to travel… if Ilfrid would even let him keep the boots. He couldn’t lie to himself - as biased as he was toward his father’s gadget of choice, the impeller, this new means of travel was enthralling. He’d thought so when Proctor Vasa demonstrated her skills countless times over, and once again with the gear on his feet. It was like skiing downhill, only with the same momentum on flatland. He felt like a little kid again. Learning something new with Windel’s glorious scent wafting into his nostrils when he got too close reminded him of his time at Kor Vinsánce, of waiting long, yet interesting days to meet her afterward.
So much has happened since then, and because of me… if my fata hadn’t forced Wudon to watch over me, none of this would’ve happened. Kovella’s Quittance would’ve had no reason to come, no reason to kill. I threw a wrench in the machine because I was too curious, and my friends were tossed off of it as a result.
What else will happen with me being here? What other grievance will I cause? If only Windel was in my esper, if only I could see my own imprints in Gushda… then I could live there uninterrupted, within my own world without harming a soul.
“Did I curse you all by trying to become something I’m not?” he asked himself, the wind in their faces too loud for Windel to hear. “Maybe that’s why they throw us in Elesion, because this is what happens when one of us is loosed unto the world.”
What the hell am I thinking? Live in my esper and what? Become lost like my mota was, and my ooma… that would be everything that my fata feared.
They’d been gliding for hours at that point, the mountains finally growing higher as they approached, finally coming closer into view. The suns were setting too, prompting a bit of worry and quicker strides to get to their destination. Eres peeked at his live map after every patch of uncracked land to make sure Ilfrid was still waiting. He thought of pinging him, but instead just stuck to the course.
Within another hour, the mountains became so looming and ominous that the two nearly had to break their necks to see its tips. Now what? Flenos boots could glide nearly vertical, but that would take too long, with too much of a learning curve. Eres knew the way, but he blushed at the thought, bringing him right back to Dolseir with her, on their first journey to Lorfa’s. He could impel them both straight to Ilfrid.
Windel lifted her fo
ot to test the slant, to see how difficult it would be to glide up the mountains. Not for her, but for him. Eres could tell by her hesitation that she was thinking the same thing he was.
“You’re going to be getting some advanced lessons early,” she tested, smiling timidly.
“Suns down is upon us. Do you really think this is the time?”
“Hah, out of shape from sitting on top of the sky for so long?” she challenged.
Eres was taken aback at first, for he didn’t expect Windel to hit so low. A chuckle escaped him, more so from the brashness of it all. Then a pang of sadness – maybe she didn’t want to be near him, to hold on tightly to one another like they once had. He thought the awkwardness would go away once he got older and more acquainted with others, but it appeared not to. Not with her, anyway.
“Maybe if my heroine wasn’t crashing into walls…” he shot back.
She hooted and walked closer to him. It seemed the reciprocation helped break down the ethereal wall that had lingered between them. “As you said so elegantly, we don’t really have the time to live out this dance, do we?”
He gazed from her eyes to her lips, then quickly back up again.
No. This was a mistake. You’re to be a Skol, an oath keeper. What will that mean if you can’t even keep your heart where you’ve made your commitment? Stay the course.
“My impeller, then.”
Windel raised an eyebrow as if to say, “You finally caught on, huh?”
One last look at the live map gave Eres a good sense of the trajectory needed. Either way, once he was airborne with an aerial view, he’d be able to spot Alga Menace Fie sticking out like a sore thumb within the mountains. Now for the difficult part…
He gawkily held out his hand, beckoning Windel to surrender. She grabbed on delicately and curtsied mockingly.
“Oh, don’t make a thing of it.”
“My, my, what a gentleman,” she continued to jest as he guided her to turn around and snuggle back up into his embrace.
“I’m no man, remember?”
Her hair was in his face now. So soft, still smelling of Dolseir, as though she brought the forest with her into this barren wasteland. Her cute dimple was apparent when she turned her head to look up at him, her expression asking “Is this okay?”
He couldn’t help but relish in the moment, but was he making things worse? Was he just standing there, stalling, tracing her face with his eyes to make sure this was really happening?
Mustae. Such a mistake…
He placed his hand hesitantly around her flat stomach, wincing to himself as he did it. She could tell he was tense and attempted to diffuse the whole thing by resting her hand over his, skin on skin, before she delved further by clasping fingers.
“Ready?”
“Ready.”
A jolt of wind at their backs swiftly drew them upward with Eres as their navigator, steering them along. He scanned quickly while they were high up and tried his best to resist the suns set. It was too romantic of a moment which needed to be avoided at all costs. A puff of air then shifted them toward the point they were looking for, and in an instant, the bulging orange-yellow orbs that could’ve been the start of a wonderful date for them rapidly hid behind monstrous rocky points once more. Back to reality. Both sets of eyes dragged toward the shider sticking out far below them.
“Oof, what’s that?” she snarled.
“That’s Alga,” he yelled to overcome the winds.
Eres guessed the uncoordinated flags, feathers, patches of rusty discoloration, and various trinkets hanging from the shider weren’t as charming to everyone as they were to Ilfrid, but she’d been doing her job thus far, and that was enough for him. He then peered down on his descent, seeing sparks bursting from under one of its many fins. Closer, and closer revealed Ilfrid toiling to meld metal back together. He was mumbling something to himself, or so Eres thought - the little owin was peeking out of Ilfrid’s jacket with little goggles to match the pilot’s.
Two light spurts of air pushed rubble and rock away from the ground like a mini-helicopter would upon touching ground.
“Welp, you’re landing skills have definitely improved.”
“Hmph,” Eres grunted.
Whispers of the past echoing in his mind were manageable. He’d worked at it relentlessly so it could be so. Five long years in Elesion created a disciplined and level-headed Dawn… until now. Having Windel by his side ruined everything. His old experiences, interactions, all of it became a full-blown shouting contest in his mind for a spot in the limelight. It was haunting and beautiful all at once. He missed her, of course, but now she was here, about to clash with his present, his new life. The thought left a ball of stress in his chest that he wasn’t quite sure would go away any time soon.
Ilfrid lowered himself from two stories up and lifted his goggles and his owin’s. He was happy to see Eres, for sure, but his forehead quickly creased, and eyes darkened upon seeing the girl.
“What is this? Every time I let you out of my sight for a few minutes you’re going to bring back another squeeze? You got one waiting in there for Alga’s sake.”
Windel blushed immediately, embarrassed and furious within two seconds of meeting this pilot. The rudeness. The audacity. It was one thing to understand that five years meant a lot of life had happened within that timeframe, but it was another to be belittled on the spot. So she pulled out her oobs and considered punching back into her Carrier system and demand that Eres take her back.
Ilfrid gasped at the sight, his expression bolstered by red patches of skin. “Gah! Faction bait.” He stepped into her personal space and started manhandling her.
Eres was so shocked that he couldn’t even react.
“You idiot! You’re going to lead them straight to us! A Carrier of the Scarred Lands,” he inspected her gear and stripes, “governmental, no less. Holy! Oh man. G-give me-”
“No!” Windel shouted as he attempted to pluck the oobs from her hand.
“Y-yes.” He wrenched it from her, slammed it onto the floor and proceeded to stomp the heel of his boot into it, over and over.
The owin’s fat little paws covered its eyes as it bobbed around in the pilot’s jacket.
Then Ilfrid whirled on Eres. “Just when I thought I couldn’t like someone less... I can’t believe I’m even saying this, but I prefer the Swul to this blatant danger to our cause.”
“Swul?” Eres heard Windel ask from behind Ilfrid’s body, which was now in his personal space. And just when Eres was about to lace into Ilfrid for acting so crazily, the pilot was tackled to the floor.
Eres froze again. He wasn’t really sure how this meeting would go, but he certainly did not expect this.
“Do you know how many memories you just crushed!” Windel shouted with a fury that Eres had never seen. Hell, he hadn’t even seen her mad until today.
The owin scurried out of Ilfrid’s jacket to avoid getting pummeled and skipped over Windel’s back to get out of there. Windel then pulled a net from her back before Ilfrid could use his weight to overpower her and wrapped it around his face.
“Stupid, cat-eyed… shit!”
Ilfrid finally threw her off, face redder than before as he scrambled to get the tangled net off of him and spat profanities along the way. “Feisty thing, yeesh.”
Then all eyes raised to see Ohndee walking up looking perplexed.
“What’s going on here?” she asked genuinely.
“Ohndee, meet Windel.” The words Eres spoke set alarms off in his brain that he didn’t even know he had.
“That Sur shitting fat animal just destroyed years of memories because… why?!”
Ohndee had relaxed once she saw yet another person who did not appreciate the brazen pilot’s methods, and so she immediately walked over to Windel and helped her up.
“No Faction devices in the Alliance! Only Reach!”
“We don’t have Reach!” all three of them shouted back to the Eplon.
“Ugh,
you don’t need to have Reach to send messages,” he mumbled, struggling back to his feet.
Dee and Windel instinctively ignored Ilfrid, finding common ground in their distaste for the man. Eres could’ve died at the sight, but was again distracted by Ilfrid dusting his jacket off and inserting himself into his space once more.
“The mission, Eres. I hope among this insanity that you keep thrusting upon us that you have some good news to report.”
Eres shrugged. “Good and bad. Which would you like first?”
“Good, obviously. What do I look like, some kind of sadist? I’ll just ignore the bad, naturally.”
“I was able to identify the package traveling in SetaSenSix. It was an esper.”
Ilfrid slapped a hand over his mouth and began to rub his stubbly chin. He looked away.
“What does it mean?” Eres asked.
“The Alliance thinks that a desperate recipient of a fallen Skrol’s esper sent it to the Imperions in hopes that they would uphold the Skrol ways and keep the ring safe.”
Eres looked bewildered as he thought about how terrible the events that transpired really were. Before he could begin telling the rest of the story to Ilfrid, the pilot’s back was already to him – fingers in his mouth as he whistled loud bird-like noises toward his shider.
“Ilfrid…” Eres’ voice trailed as three hlopes glided from the open doorway like fluorescent paper planes.
The pilot side-eyed Eres as the odd creatures landed gracefully on his shoulder and bowed their pointy, aerodynamic heads.
“You need to know the bad news.”
“What? That you brought another ungrateful wench to travel fee-free? Pfft. I do have eyes, Eres.” He was about to turn again but Eres stopped him.
“I do not need to know. Okay? I hate bad news. I’d rather focus on the good and what we have to work with. Now if you don’t mind, I’d like to inform the Alliance of this rather time-sensitive information, hmm?”
Eres’ didn’t understand how Ilfrid was going to send a message in the first place. Did he speak bird?
