Spirits of Falajen

by Ginger Salazar

  I’m sorry I let you knock yourself out again, ‘Sethi. I warned you, though. Enjoy your sympathy snack.

  ~Etyne

  She scowled momentarily then took the pastry and snuck over to his quarters four doors down. She tapped the door lightly, suddenly aware that she had no idea what time it was.

  “Ugh, what do you want?” Etyne asked as he opened the door. He yawned and shielded his eyes from her lantern.

  “To thank you for the pastry,” she said, walking past him into his assigned room.

  He sat back down on his bed, rubbing one eye while watching her with the other. She set down her lantern on his desk and crawled on the bed to sit next to him. Etyne grabbed his pocket watch to look at the time. “It’s hour one; did you just wake up from the temporary coma you put yourself in?”

  “And you say I’m cranky when I don’t sleep,” she said with a raised eyebrow. “Yes, I did just wake up. Here have some,” she gave him half of her pastry.

  He reluctantly took it and shoved it in his mouth if only to take away the taste of sleep. “You were out for ten hours,” he spoke while chewing.

  “I thought it was still evening, I didn’t mean to wake you. Consider it payback for putting me out for so long,” she smiled good-naturedly. She took a bite of her half of the pastry then turned to the window above his bed, sitting on her knees. Every time she visited him, she took advantage of the view of the grand palace since her own room’s view was of the Citadel’s tree-filled courtyard.

  “You’re very fortunate I don’t hate you as much as I used to or I’d knock you back out so I can get my last three hours of sleep,” he whined, stifling another yawn.

  She glared at him chewing the last bit of her pastry. “Next time don’t try to fatten me up with sweets.” She pried herself away from the window and forcefully fit herself between him and the wall.

  He playfully poked at her waist. “You’re right, you don’t need anymore sweets.”

  “Don’t be rude, jerk,” she swatted at his hand, trying incredibly hard not to laugh from the slight tickle. She used her mystic to extinguish the lantern flame to spend the remainder of her night in his bed.

  “One day they’re going to randomly inspect my room when you’re sleeping here and get us both in a world of trouble,” he lectured, lying down with his back against hers.

  “You can hide me with your mystic,” she mumbled, struggling to take over his pillow. She yawned and closed her eyes.

  “And Joss?” Etyne persisted. “Is he fine with the fact you barge in here every now and then and pass out next to me? I can’t exactly mention this type of routine to Kara without her following up with an interrogation of you.” He wasn’t as tired now that she took up half of his cramped bed. He had only been seeing Kara for a month, but wasn’t willing to discuss with her the companionship he had with Brisethi.

  “I haven’t even spoken with him in months,” she casually replied. Though tired and comfortable as she was, she sat back up and crawled off of his bed to walk to the door. “I suppose if I were Kara, I wouldn’t appreciate my presence here, either.”

  The officers in training were allowed one day off per week to visit their family and loved ones or to just relax in their quarters in the Citadel. While Etyne spent his days with his mother or Kara, or Antuni when he wasn’t out to sea, Brisethi took the chance to visit her parents or Korteni. When she was on good terms with Joss every other few months, she would visit him in his house by the shoreline. Though, a lot of their time was spent arguing, she still enjoyed taking his boat out to sea with him to go fishing or taking a carriage into the city for a fancy dinner at renowned restaurants. Sometimes, they would spend the evening playing with his muscular dogs in the middle of grassy fields, watching the stars.

  “Quick, make a wish!” Brisethi shouted when they watched a star pierce the night sky at an incredible rate.

  “My wish already came true,” Joss smiled to her, planting a kiss to her lips. “What is your wish?”

  She didn’t want to ruin the moment by telling him she wished for world domination, but she wasn’t about to lie to him, either. “Ah, you know, the same thing I’ve always wished for.” She smiled and returned the kiss, leaving him recollecting her past wishes.

  -:- -:- -:-

  Etyne rarely visited any of Res’Baveth’s fine bookstores. When there was a book he needed to read for class, the Citadel library provided it, free of charge. But he wasn’t in need of a book for class this time. Brisethi’s birthday was only a week away and learned that her favorite fantasy author had just printed his newest novel.

  He heard the abrupt chuckle of a woman when he picked up the book. He arched a brow in her direction when he realized she was chuckling at him.

  “My apologies, it’s just that, most fans of his work wear very large spectacles and are extremely overweight,” the woman told him, gleaming at his fit build.

  He half smiled at the thought of the complete opposite description of this author’s particular fan. “It’s not for me,” he declared when his eyes met hers.

  “You’re Kiaran?” the woman took a few steps toward him to have a closer look at his eyes.

  He was used to the unwanted attention and simply stared blankly out of the window behind her until she was ready to leave him be.

  “My apologies, I don’t mean to be rude,” she softly spoke and broke eye contact. “My name is Serythe.”

  “I’m Etyne,” he muttered. He wasn’t in the business of making new friends at the moment, especially since Kara had decided to end their relationship two weeks ago to pursue someone else. Brisethi’s usual rum and fireworks to cheer him up had left him in bed his entire day off. A week later, when he spent his last day off in bed the entire day again, he couldn’t blame it on rum and fireworks that time. He needed to stop with his self-pity and found himself at the bookstore if only to be outside away from his room at the Citadel.

  “If you’re not into fantasy books, then what are you interested in?” Serythe pressed on, following him to the register.

  Etyne slightly sighed then glanced at the woman who he couldn’t deny was very attractive. Her mahogany hair curled at the ends in layers from her shoulder down to the middle of her back the same as Brisethi’s hairstyle. He paused in his thoughts when he realized he was comparing her to his dearest friend. Forgive me, ‘Sethi, you’ve suddenly given me different standards as of late, he thought to himself. Since Antuni wasn’t around as much while he was on sea duty, he had unintentionally replaced him with Brisethi. Unknowingly, he sought out his favorite traits of her in other women instead of having Antuni around for his opinion.

  “I don’t actually read that often,” Etyne finally admitted after paying for the book. “I’m in school at the moment and my hobbies include mostly studying and mentoring.”

  “Oh, what college are you attending?” Serythe asked.

  Etyne cleared his throat but still mumbled, “Dominion Citadel.”

  “I beg your pardon?” She wasn’t quite sure she heard him correctly.

  “I am not in college. I am attending officer training at the Dominion Citadel,” he reiterated rather brashly.

  Serythe smiled despite his annoyed demeanor. “There’s nothing shameful about the military life. It’s not as if you had moved back in with your mother to read these fantasy books created for the simple-minded in hopes of writing your own-”

  “It was nice meeting you,” he interrupted and proceeded to the exit. Though fantasy novels were not his interest, the term, “simple-minded” was not a term he would use to define Brisethi.

  “Oh, I didn’t mean to offend,” Serythe called after. “Please, let me buy you a coffee, or a tea?” She gestured to the cozy cafe at the entrance of the bookstore. Various plush chairs and wooden tables were low to the ground while barstools neatly lined the counter much like the taverns.

  “That’s generous of you, but-”

  “I have a paper due in two weeks about anything that has chan
ged my perspective of anything, really. I have a feeling you could help me with such a task,” she persuaded, slowly walking to the bistro table for two at the window.

  Etyne reconsidered his evening plans. Ordinarily, he would be helping Brisethi with her studies but today was their day off from school and training - she was out with Joss this day and he told himself he wouldn’t sleep away the afternoon from boredom and self-pity again of losing Kara. The sprinkles of rain quickly became heavy which only encouraged him to stay in the library until it cleared. “I suppose a cup of tea wouldn’t delay too much of my studying.”

  Despite her first undelightful impression, Serythe turned out to be enjoyable company to Etyne. She allowed him to discuss his experiences in officer training while she attempted to compare them to her own experience at the college. Only their Resarian History and Language Arts classes were vaguely similar to one another. She wasn’t anywhere near to taking the physics and advanced mathematics classes the Dominion had forced their officers to enroll in.

  “Wow, so not only was Resarian your first language, but you’re fluent in Kiaran and the common language of Trycinea continent?” Serythe asked with wide eyes.

  Etyne nodded after a sip of his spiced tea. “The Dominion dedicates a certain amount of hours per week to learning Kiaran during our enlisted expedition for all four years. It isn’t hard to learn considering Kiaran and Resarian derived from ancient Sariadnese. However, common Trycinean is a tad harder. Everything we learned in grade school is basically forgotten. Our first three years in officer training were spent learning the Trycinean language two days a week with one more year to go.”

  Serythe slowly spoke to him in broken common Trycinean, hoping to impress him. “I mostly have forget what was learned to us - no, kigat, teached to us in grade school. But my tutor is, ah, is teaching me again.”

  Etyne raised his brow to her broken attempt and heavy Resarian accent. “Ah, you’ll get there one day,” he retorted in fluent common tongue with a condescending smirk.

  Returning to their native language she stammered, “Hey, I really want to continue this. You’ve changed my perspective about Dominion Officers - I honestly thought you were all just a bunch of know-nothing brutes that just want to keep a war going for all of eternity,” she chuckled nervously when Etyne remained expressionless. “Would you want to meet again?”

  He ran his finger along the handle of his teacup while staring into the emptiness. Marinelle had betrayed his trust, followed by Kara breaking his heart after an entire year with her. He was emotionally drained at the moment from the past two women, feeling as empty as his cup. With spirit’s fortune, he would soon graduate from officer training and move on before anyone else could have the chance to abandon him again. Since Brisethi was always gone on their one day off per week, he decided he could use Serythe’s company every so often after all.

  “Same time, same place one week from today?” He suggested to her.

  She nodded with a smile and stood. “Until next time, Etyne.”

  When she gave him a loose hug, he lightly hugged her back. Her frame was small and yet again, caught himself comparing her to the strong, friendly hugs of Brisethi’s dense, muscular frame.

  -:- -:- -:-

  It was the one day a week the junior officers were allowed to sleep in past hour four. The abrupt knocking, however, had Brisethi startled from her deep sleep at seventh hour. “By the damned dragon spirits, what?!” She shouted when she answered the door to her quarters.

  Etyne was standing before her with a wide grin on his face. “Happy Birthday!” He covered her revealing, low-cut nightwear by pressing his gift to her upon her chest. “Get your clothes on, I’m taking you out for birthday breakfast.”

  “What is going on right now? It isn’t a holiday!” Brisethi groggily replied while stumbling toward her shared bathroom. Her achy body struggled to wake and her pounding headache made her cranky.

  “Wow, ‘Sethi, I’m hurt. Have you already forgotten the past three years of our Citadel gatherings?”

  “No,” she continued from the washroom. “Our game ran late last night into overtime, then my team took me out for drinks for my birthday. I’m certain I’ve only been asleep two hours.” She groaned from the hot water she splashed to her face, careful to not press too hard on her newest injuries.

  Brisethi threw on appropriate clothes while remembering that no one enjoyed holidays during the expedition. However, at recollecting the past three years at the Citadel with Etyne, he had a terrible habit of waking her up earlier on any holiday for breakfast before they would part ways for the afternoon. Her favorite holiday to wake up for was winter solstice when they would take a carriage to his mother’s house where Drienna would make breakfast for them both. Summer Solstice breakfast was cooked and eaten at her parents house followed by a splash in the sea before parting ways for the evening to their lovers.

  She was more awake by the time they sat at their usual booth in their usual breakfast cafe. “Ooh, what is it, a book?” she excitedly asked at testing the weight of her wrapped gift. She watched Etyne nod with a smile and began unwrapping it. “Terenth Gon Ikan wrote a sixth novel? How did you know? How did I not know?”

  Etyne beamed at her excited face as she studied the newest novel, Souls of the Forgotten, from her favorite author. He finally stopped averting his eyes to ask about her darkened eye and cut on her cheek. “I don’t recall leaving marks on your face this week, ‘Sethi. Who did that?” He tried not to appear too concerned while cutting at his flatcakes.

  Brisethi tenderly touched at her new wounds on her face. “Ah, the command doesn’t allow healers on site for hak’ii games,” she casually replied. “It would only encourage more fights.”

  Etyne laughed in relief. “For a moment there, I was worried you’d found a new sparring partner in Joss.”

  “Spirits no, I would destroy him,” she attempted to smirk despite the cut on her cheek.

  Their holiday breakfast continued with their usual banter and reminiscence of past holidays until they parted ways to their own afternoons.

  Serythe and Etyne didn’t spend much time at the coffee shop until he was invited over to her parents’ manor. He was actually intimidated by such grandeur of the mansion and her incredibly wealthy parents. Butlers and maids tended to their meal and by the end of the evening, the two were walking under the stars in her own garden. She used her mystic to create water for the flowers then turned the remaining water into mist and fog. She kept the fog at ground level to create a mysterious environment throughout the pathways of the garden. The favored flower of most Resarians, the Nightsparks, glistened in cerulean luminescence, piercing the fog where they lined the cobblestone paths. “What is your mystic?” she asked. “Or, do you even have one since you’re only half-Resarian? How old are you? How old will you live?”

  “I have one, yes, thanks to my Resarian mother and I will live at least another eight hundred years. My spirit is a protective mystic wielder. I can shield others from projectiles, distort the air around us to appear nearly invisible. But mainly, I can turn into my corporeal form to quickly escape or traverse across great distances in the fraction of the time it takes on horseback,” he explained.

  “Mystical traverse, wow,” she whispered. Spellbound by his physique, his mystics, and his mind, Serythe entangled her fingers into his. “I want to see you again, Etyne,” she blatantly stated. She had become inured to demanding what she wanted and acquiring it.

  So long as she didn’t interfere with his own studies or demand too much of his free time, he obliged to her request. “I’m only available one day a week,” he warned her from beneath his brow.

  “That’s fair,” she softly told him, losing herself in his eyes.

  “And I graduate next year which means I most likely won’t be stationed in the city anymore,” he added his hint that this would be temporary.

  Serythe pressed herself into Etyne, running her hands along his sculpted arms and shoulder
s. “I would wait for you to return.”

  Heard that before, he thought to himself. He was empty of sentiment and wanted only to take Serythe for the night. Whatever she wanted, emotionally, she would not acquire from him. He was only a shell. He kissed her on the lips as they gave in to their shortly awaited desires of one another.

  -:- -:- -:-

  During the winter months when it was too cold to venture out, Brisethi taught Joss some of the card games she’d learned from other military members or she would drag him out to ice skate with her and help her practice for her command ha’kii games.

  Every now and then they took the time to travel to Korteni’s village of Worgale when she wasn’t out at sea. Brisethi and Joss set out in a carriage one morning when the sun had finally peaked out after days of snow. The rays sparkled on the powdery white snow, and the faintest hint of spring was in the air.

  Joss directed the carriage out onto the road, the runners making fresh tracks. He happily breathed in the cool air, bundled up in the blankets with the woman he loved by his side.

  “Ohh,” Brisethi said excitedly and pointing, “look at the blossoms!” Spiny trees with pale pink flowers lined the lane. “That’s my favorite part of this season.” She leaned up against Joss, staring all around, eagerly taking in the pretty scenery around her as they traveled. She wished she had her paints.

  “Mine too,” Joss said quietly.

  Korteni welcomed them brightly when they arrived, hugging Brisethi and smiling kindly at Joss. “How was the journey? I hope it wasn’t too cold. Come in, there’s so much food to be eaten!” she said, not giving them a chance to respond.

  They spent a happy day eating smoked salmon with sweet potato fries, drinking wine and ale, and catching up. Korteni always had plenty of sea stories to share now that she was already a First Class Petty Officer. “We were sitting in the mess deck when all of a sudden the alarm sounded. We didn’t even have a chance to react before we hit something so hard that the stew flew all over the place!”