Dagger: Chapter Ten

Chapter 10

In the early morning, Ariam was thrilled as the wind blew a flurry draft at her sweet face on the deck of the Grateful Dead. They had been sailing for almost three days and two nights, making their way on sea to the Dagger Fortress of Krajinyr, Kina Shira for that was their destination after Tmavy Woods. She can tell by the way the wind pushes the air and the smell of the surrounding, they were closing by, and it was a matter of hours by now. The ship sailed close by the shore, sea stacks dotted around, and wind was chilly with the smell of fresh sea.

            Standing on the top deck with her, were all her companions. Most of them had been properly acquainted already, except for Jamarpabelle who mostly kept to himself. However last night, Jamarpabelle and Ariam had a moment.

“You’re a very quiet person aren’t you?” probed Ariam as she looked at how calm and soothing the elf’s temperance was last night. She knows that every person living or dead in the world has something to be maiming mangled sad about, and that words can affect. “I mean nothing by it, and I’m not asking whether you’re shy around us considering you’re a new member here, I was just curious as to why you don’t speak much, that is all. I thought maybe you’re not comfortable here or maybe you don’t like us, and if you do, I’m sure there is something we can do to make up for it. I hope I wasn’t intruding or have offended you by asking, if I did, let me start begging for forgiveness.”

            She got the elf cracked open a can of smile, no laughter, nothing that joyous, just a small teeny tiny bit curve of his lips, but even that means a lot, way more than one tend to simply think. He turned to Ariam, killed the smile already, and said very wisely, “Don’t apologize. I don’t speak to the others every so often because when I let things out, I am afraid they can hear me, but incapable of understanding. And when that happens it is frustrating for me and for the others, and so, I think, for me, it is best to be silent.”

            “Well, alright,” there was nothing more Ariam could say really, sometimes people are like that, and no matter how much we try to connect to them, it simply won’t occur straightforwardly. But it doesn’t mean Jamarpabelle care less about the others or have little emotion, it is people like Jamarpabelle, the quiet ones that usually have the greatest things to say. Patience is needed. “I’ll be going now. I don’t want to bother you any longer,” Ariam finished and swirled, walked away from the elf slowly.

            However, before she got five feet away from Jamarpabelle, the elf called her back, and said very gently for only her ears to receive, “Ariam… Thank you, for trying to understand when you even can’t. It means a lot to me.”

            Ariam thought it was best for all her companions to get to know one another a little bit better, and that was why she called them up there, so they could get along. She woke up that morning animated. It had never occurred to the young Dagger that she would one day return to her home with friends. She hassle everybody, waking up Kelvin, Jamarpabelle, Bernard, Obadiah, and even Raewyn.

            “Wait till you guys see it, and then you would know why I am so excited,” Ariam gleefully informed her companions. “Kina Shira is one of the most beautiful places in the world for me. All the Daggers in the North were trained there in Kina Shira.” She hadn’t been out to the world very often, but to Ariam, the place where she called home was the most precious to her heart.

            Kelvin the Scarred Seeker had become a bit more comfortable living in the pirate ship, the Grateful Dead since they sail off from Tmavy Woods, while his thoughts were still on Jodeline, his mage and lover, he was still  focused on helping the gang’s cause for he thought that would what Jodeline wanted. And besides, he didn’t felt right returning to the Sepulcher after all that he has done. In the ship, he had gone quite well with Bernard, even though Kelvin acknowledged that Bernard was his captain, he was quick to call out the captain’s nonsense without a second thought. But aside from that, the two have become quite a pair. Bernard even let the former Seeker win a few games of dices.

            “Come one, Bernard,” Ariam pressurized. “Can’t this ship go any faster? Kina Shira is just there.”

            The captain found her enthusiastic behavior endearing, even pausing whatever he was doing just to stare at the Dagger.

            Within the ship, they were merry as they can be. Jamarpabelle showed knife tricks to Kelvin and the rest of the ship crew, whilst Ariam was talking nonstop about Kina Shira to the listen-willing Bernard. She was already desensitized of Bernard’s advances by now and treated it as a joke, and has come to treat the captain as an honored friend. Meanwhile, John Lockeheart, the first mate, manned the wheel and commandeered the vessel along the coast, avoiding sea stacks along the way. Seriously, Lockeheart was more of a captain than Bernard, but that was just how it works on the Grateful Dead.

            And behind the deck, just the two of them, Obadiah and Raewyn were discussing of serious matters. “Can anyone in Kina Shira really identify the rogue Dagger we met in Kexhill?” Raewyn asked curiously as if it was her duty to know.

            The senior Dagger turned a level gaze toward the elf, suspicious as to why Raewyn was asking about this. To be honest, the elf mage had been asking about the matter ever since they got out of Kexhill, the village that got hit by the rogue Dagger. “Whenever a Dagger becomes rogue, their respective headquarters will send out crows to the rest of the Dagger headquarters. I’m sure Kina Shira had received word of this information. And the Dagger we met was using a southern Dagger armor, so he must have been from Kina Pasir in Mezhiphyr,” Obadiah said judiciously. “I have no doubts we will identify this Dagger once we reach Kina Shira.”

            “I see,” Raewyn scratch her chin as she heard this. Something about when they reached Kina Shira and identifying the rogue Dagger made the elf mage on edge.

            “Why?” Obadiah asked. “Isn’t that good? You seem distraught about this.”

            Without giving any response to Obadiah’s questions, Raewyn turned and ran down below deck to her quarters away from everyone else bizarrely.

            Ariam saw the elf mage ran back down, so the young Dagger stopped talking to Bernard for a while and went up to Obadiah and queried the man. “What did you say to her?” she asked.

            “Nothing,” he could say. “I just told her we will be able to identify the rogue Dagger once we reach Kina Shira, and the girl just ran off on me.”

            Ariam left her mentor as she squeezed her anger in because she was for sure knew Obadiah had something to do with this. Without a minute to spare, she ran down the deck to Raewyn. She found the mage in her room, talking to herself. There were flickering lights coming out of the little mage’s chambers as well, but as soon as Ariam’s voices approached not far off, Raewyn shut the light off and cut off her conversation with the air. Ariam entered, and she strode in closer to the elf with the intent to pray to the sinners who have been misplaced in hell for crimes they did in passion.

            Raewyn turned jumpy, and tried her best to claim herself as the Dagger entered her quarters. “Ariam,” the elf hid an orb inside her satchel nervously. “What are you doing here?”

            Ariam observed the elf, and then the room. She was trying to understand Raewyn, and what exactly was she doing down here all alone. No matter who you are, trying to understand another soul will leave you lost. “I saw you ran down here after you talked to Obadiah, and I just wanted to see if you are alright. I know Obadiah can be bossy sometimes…”

            “No,” the elf stopped her. “It’s not about Obadiah. It’s nothing. Don’t worry about me.”

            Leaving the topic behind and plunged into another new one, Ariam asked Raewyn. “Were you talking to someone before I came in? I heard your voice uttering.”

            “Like I said, it’s nothing.”

            Ariam could care less really, the reason she was asking all those damn questions Raewyn found bothersome was because the young Dagger hankered a connection with someone she thought had the same feelings for her. “I’m sorry,” she said, it’s embarrassing to apologize for caring too much. “I didn’t mean to meddle. I just want to get to know you a little bit better,” marched a little closer.

            There was no reason to give a little, no reason to be all transmittal, but her walls were brittle from the tenderness she had been received. “You told me you never met your real parents did you?” Raewyn gestured sharply for Ariam to take a step back and she hesitantly did so. “Well I lost mine. I do not wish to compare our pain, but to have them and have them taken away from you is much more painful rather than not having them in the first place.”

            “I hear you, but…” Ariam said weakly, but chose not to finish her sentence.

            “My parents and I lived in a village down in Ditengah. We were the only elf family in a human village. It wasn’t the best place to live, but we had each other, and that was good enough. One day, my powers started to show, the villagers wanted to bring me to the church but my parents won’t let them. That was it. The villagers never liked us, and it was obvious, because we had pointy ears. That was the only reason they needed to treat us like animals. Some of the men with weapons killed my parents in the middle of the village for everyone to witness, and the rest of the villagers didn’t do anything, they just looked while I beg for them to stop. There was nothing I could do afterwards, I ran away to the woods all alone,” the elf informed Ariam. “That moment taught me a prevailing lesson about life. People were savages, and bad things can happen. And they happen all the time. And if we have the power, we can make the bad things happen to those who hurt the ones we care about.”

            A little frightened, Ariam asked. “What happened to the villagers?”

            “I went back.”

            “And what then?”

Raewyn had already said too much about herself. And had already shared too much information more than she wanted to, and she wanted them back, she want all the words she had poured out to return back inside her, where no one could hear or even the slightest be acquainted with and understand. It made her feel weak, and being weak at that point was not something she could not afford. She doesn’t want to get close to anyone, not to Ariam especially, because if she did then she will care too much, give too much, and most of all feel too much.

“You stop talking. Why?” Ariam noticed the conversation had cut short to abrupt when things were just about to get interesting.

Raewyn didn’t felt like it was right for her to go on any further. She acknowledged that two people can be close and it can somehow possible allow something stunning, but deep down she knew as soon as Ariam found out all that needs to know about her it becomes something foul. She thought to herself unworthy of a proper friendship, that the bad things in her life would outweigh the good. So, she settled with the notion Ariam could not be trusted, as should Ariam not trust her.

And that was the problem, she trust people using her eyes. Sometimes the eyes are lacking and that in order to really trust someone, one must truly believe on what they feel with their tiny beating melon heart.

“I don’t want to talk about the past, or anything about me,” she said very hastily wanting to end the chat and bring about silence. Silence was a friend to many in the ship. “Talking about the past is like being dragged back there, everything hurts even the good ones. Better just… let it go,” she said the last bit with a tip-off of self-pity in her silvery voice. She had learned that everything was temporary, the good, the bad, everything soon ends, what stays constant is the pain. She thought herself as a memory, she can be the good ones or the bad ones, but just like everything, she too, was nothing but momentary.

The unique combination of her feelings, Lukay’s beauty, and the moments they were creating and sharing set a stage a whirlwind of emotions. Love perhaps.

So, she gave her that look. That look people do, when they were very sure they had fallen but not wanting to show it. Flustered and such. But it was the last thing Raewyn wanted. It was the one thing she thought her heart could not take.

“Don’t!” the voice in Raewyn’s head screamed. “Don’t you dare fall in love! Not to her, not to anyone.” She burned and incinerated the notions of love immediately. Let the ashes drifted off into the darkest abyss of her mind, where she kept all the bad things. She took it as a right move to not be attached. Too fearful to try again, too afraid her heart might not be able to stand the ache if it doesn’t work out.

And as mortals, we want so bad things to work out and when it doesn’t it shatters our spirits. So we break ourselves before anyone or anything could do it for us.

Ariam looked as though she wanted to speak again, but as she slightly gaped opened her mouth, the ship’s alarm bell rang and Lockeheart’s yell could be heard below deck. “A town is under attack! A mother of a smelly drunken goat, a town is under attack for the love of the Gods!” Raewyn looked at Ariam, and Ariam looked at Raewyn. They left the room and ran back up to the deck with the rest of the ship’s crew.

Once the two girls reached to the top deck,

-saw a town being attacked by monsters.

-help the town, some stayed. Ariam and some of the party members leave to kina shira.

*It is incomplete, I apologize for the incomplete work. Nonetheless, I hope you guys enjoyed the run.