by K M McGuire
“Everything okay?” came Andar’s voice from in front of him, breaking through the solace.
Voden let the staleness linger in the tranquility. He felt oddly bitter towards Andar, a kind of bitterness he could perhaps confess as selfishness. It had been three days since they had had a decent conversation. It was there, amid the words exchanged, some old bond between them had been severed like the edge of parchment slicing through skin. It seems for friends, splitting atoms is like being separated by a world of oceans.
It began not long after their departure from Blossum. They had left with high spirits, excited that all they had set out to do was nearing its conclusion, but after a few hours of travel, their conversation quickly shifted towards Vec and Yael. From their opinions, the rift tore. Voden wanted to go find Yael urgently, but Andar felt the priority was Adetia. They began to bicker and could not reconcile their thoughts.
“What can you expect for me to say, Voden?” Andar said defeatedly, and he pulled his horse to a stop. He turned to his friend, looking exhausted. “I know…I just…I can’t really explain it to you, Voden. I can’t see what the right thing is at this point! How long would we have to search for them before we moved on? How long until the Well dries completely? Then what? Was all this journey for nothing? Our friends—is it worth hindering this quest for our emotions?”
“You seemed okay with it when we were with Blossum!” Voden cried defensively. “Now that I am asking for what I feel is right in my heart, you fight against me!”
“And you didn’t stop me!” yelled Andar. It turned a shiver almost the wrong way up Voden’s spine, never expecting for Andar to burn so fiercely against him. “You didn’t once make it an urgent push to return! I’m not saying either of us isn’t at fault, but we can’t feel proper if Adetia turns to ruin, no matter how we feel about those we have met out here! The sooner we finish this, the sooner we can come back to them.”
Even still, Voden wanted to rationalize what he wanted. His head eventually made him concede, but his heart yearned to hold Yael again. It was the memories he feared to lose, captive to the past, wanting the unsure future to at least have her.
“Then we shall go back to Adetia,” he whispered gruffly. He glared at Andar, and he knew Andar recognized every thought pulsing through his head. It still didn’t make his anger settle, knowing that Andar somehow was always right.
Voden spent much of the next few days with his mouth shut. He couldn’t accept the defeat this time, regardless of himself being right or wrong. He felt he had a right to be angry and could not bring himself to admit his folly. But time only made the sentiments grow ever more stagnant, and he knew after those few days, he was being a pouty child.
He suspected that much of this was coming from his pain of separation from Yael, or at least, the unknown thoughts that she could have. He could imagine her anger at his disappearance or her debilitating sadness, or any other emotion that set in between those two. Every possibility was there, and his silence trapped the worst of them. Would she even want to see him again? The more violently he tried to ignore them, the further they bombarded the smallest things he observed, changing every bit of his demeanor to outwardly cast his anger towards everything he saw. Facing the truth felt more crushing than he wanted to admit. As much as he wanted to avoid the worst, he needed answers, even if it caused him ruin.
His gaze lingered on the burning horizon, clouds holding questions in the air and perhaps even feelings and regrets. It was all sewn together by the sun, dancing calmly along the edge of the horizon. The sky was a canvas of color the Watchers Beyond had set ablaze. He peered at the clouds, burning at their edges like parchment sitting in a hearth, as time blew the brightness alive. It was time to let the strife burn out as well.
“I can’t, Andar,” Voden whispered finally. “I can’t lose them. Yael, I mean.”
“I understand.”
They allowed the silence to captivate them. The trees responded in kind. “Do you think you would have stayed with Blossum, if we didn’t have to return?” Voden wondered, needing the reassurance.
“If it hadn’t been for Adetia, I don’t think I would have been equipped to help her. I don’t think I would know how to care for her,” he said. “I’m in debt to Adetia. Without it, I could not have found one to love. The greatest lesson I learned came from Adetia, and the city taught me romance. No, not in the roses and sensual sort of way, I mean true romance. Everything undeserved about love that still comes as an offering, without any thought of reciprocation. To give for the sake of what is right. Adetia gave me a ground that rooted me. I may not agree with everything, but the essence of that place is the witness of the Beyond, which gave us the chance to take the first Great Love, the first romance, and turn it back around. Love can still exist if it isn’t returned, but its beauty and its potential expands beyond anything quantifiable when it is returned to the one who gifted it. It grows and spreads beyond reason and science. No number or vision could ever quite grasp it. Love becomes the paradoxical answer of how the east meets the west.”
“But I think you’re avoiding the question,” Voden responded, pressing for what he cared to know. “You must feel something urging you to question your decision.”
“I still linger on that question and wonder if I should have stayed.” He paused a moment. “But the Beyond would grant that union if it is something meant to be.” Andar drifted off, as he then looked south towards home.
“And what if you never see her again?” Voden asked, and again, it seemed just projections he had to answer for himself, but he needed Andar’s reasoning to justify it. “Could you bear that longing? Would it hide throughout your dreams, seeping out of your nightmares? Would you be bitter to dream of the possibilities, or the loss of what could have been?”
Andar did not look back at Voden. He sat quietly, mulling over the idea. Only gentle clouds escaped his body in the evening light. “I can’t hold the ‘if only’ on my chest. It kills the now and rots the future. I hope with that nostalgic heart, and I think I do long for her. But I need to be okay knowing the outcome I want may never be. I may not get it here, but whatever lies Beyond—every embrace I will miss now, I will receive all of them, as well as the ones I had not considered. It will be whispered, even to the deepest sadness now. It is okay, and we will believe it there. We linger in the past so much, but there, in the Great Beyond, we can rest in futures.”
Voden thought hard of that smile he wished to see forever, those eyes and that laugh that filled the space vacant in his dreams. He hated to think that the longer she stayed a dream, she would slip away to tatters of memories. “I don’t know what I’m going to do,” he said finally. “When this is all done, I haven’t a clue what the right thing for me is. Adetia is my home, but I don’t know if it will be that if Yael isn’t there.”
Andar looked at him, and a somber smile took his face. “I think I will leave,” he whispered. “There’s too much worth it out here to be sheltered by peace that only harbors itself. I would rather be heedless with love than to be miserly with grace.”
Voden focused beyond his friend through the gap in the trees. Colors of the evening conflagration slipped through the sun worshipper’s fingers. He knew he agreed with his friend, at least in part, but there was a comfort to Adetia he wanted to be complacent to. It was simple and structured. Not like out here. The light cradled Voden’s semblance. He allowed his thoughts to roam, at least for now, knowing he had plenty of time to find an answer before it was all done. He heard the whispers of spring, and hope, again, filled his lungs.
“Let’s get going,” Andar uttered.
Voden nodded in return and they both urged their horses down the shallow hill, through the loose landscape of trees. The icicles called to Voden, a lamentation meant for no other, and perhaps it carried jingles of warning. Their fear of the sun brought the song to their mouths and closer to the end of the journey they longed for.
The sun now tucked itself below the laven
der mountains looming over the landscape. The sky shifted to a pale yellow, where the color of day was drained of its blushing life, closing its eyes to that purple void. The oddities of night lurked in the calm, creeping shadows. Bated creatures stirred with restless anticipation for when the world became theirs. Voden and Andar pressed their mounts on, heading towards what they believed to be south. The cold crept around them like a draft under a door, soon burning into the clothes they wore, pulling the warmth from them like a Spindler teasing wool into thread.
“We need to set up camp,” Voden said through his clattering teeth. He could not push aside his weakness anymore. He could only dream to have Andar’s determination.
“Yeah,” Andar responded, shivering in kind. It appeared he didn’t want Voden to know his own throe he waged with the frost. “Let’s head to that clearing.” He pointed towards a silver ribbon of moonlight dowsing a small patch of thin snow, wrapped by stout shrubs. With hopeful strides, they led the horse towards the clearing, tying them to a nearby tree, and Andar swept away the thin layer of snow. Voden quickly grew bored watching him and allowed his eyes to venture through the surrounding woods. He felt calm among the coniferous trees that cradled their seclusion. Their presence would go unnoticed, even with a fire churning light. He thought for a moment that his mind had manifested a discolored splotch, shifting through the tightly knit needles in the forest ahead of him.
A curious pang of fear kept his eyes fixed on anomaly, and he soon became concerned, his wandering spotted something worth a second opinion. “Andar,” he hissed, unable to move his eyes from the dull flicker. Andar mumbled to himself as he stacked his scavenged sticks, trying to birth a fire for himself and Voden from the neat pile he created.
“Andar!” Voden called again, this time arousing Andar from his working trance. He looked up at Voden and made an acknowledging noise. Voden pointed his finger to the odd color through the trees. “You think it’s something to worry about?”
Andar stood up, considering the blinking color. “Let’s find out.”
“I don’t know how I feel about that,” Voden said nervously. But he saw the spark caught in Andar’s eye. He knew he would be unable to sway him and sighed. “Fine, but only for a short time. I’m not getting captured again.”
Andar nodded smugly and started off through the trees. Voden tightened his lips and followed. They stepped in cadence with the hoot of the owls and the rustle of the other creatures treading gingerly as they approached the vermilion strips of light. Voden watched Andar fluttering like a moth from behind trees. He followed, doing his best to match his motion. He felt the same discomfort that vexed him almost daily now. The fire beckoned them, transfixed by the mysteries that lay at the center of light. The shadows grew darker, and the orange bled between the trees. The rays of light seemed to watch them, lidless sentries to the fire. But grace was crowned to the hemlocks and firs, which covered enough ground in shadow that no one would expect more than tiny vermin scurried behind the wall of trees, whose only goal was to escape the wicked plots of predators.
Andar slowed his pace and hid under one of the hemlocks just outside the clearing, where the shadows turned his presence to all but nothing. The tree was large enough for the two to share. Voden slid under the drooping branches with his friend, careful not to ruffle the spikes. The ground was covered in a bed of browning needles, which was much more comfortable than the frozen soil that lay beneath it.
They peered through the branches and saw a pair of dirt brown tents on the other side of the fire, cloaking the curious people with the same shadow that hid Voden and Andar below the tree. A tall figure wore a dark cloak, tugged tightly around his body. The hood draped lazily over his forehead, and all but a prominent nose was cast in a veil of obscurity. The tall one stumbled around, inebriation laced in each step he took, affirmed by the hollow swishing of the near-empty jug, loosely gripped in his hand. It was evident his movements were greatly impacted by the drunkenness he had succumb to, or more likely, something troubled the individual, which carried through in the volume of his voice. It was familiar, though Voden was under the impression that he wanted it to be for his own comfort.
“This cold can be buried with the dead,” the man slurred, swinging the jug freely towards his mouth. They could not hear whether the other reacted to the comment, fiddling away with something, facing the fire. But the other must have responded because the man blubbered a string of loosely coherent words. “But that’s precisely why I drink! Problems drown and the truest sense of how…how I want to feel take hold! There is misery all around us! I just hate to look fo…for a flower buried in a mountain of shit!”
The other mumbled incoherently, moving with slight gestures. The hooded man howled with laughter, swinging backwards. “What does that even mean? I don’t think the risk is going to end up being worth it! You could spend every day, every moment, and you would never get what you want! Look at me! I’ve told you about what I was led to believe. Everything is gone faster than you blink, and that’s probably for the best! It’s worse when it fades slowly.”
The man slumped slightly, looking at the jug held in the ring his fingers made, hanging by his side. It seemed he was considering something, but before he allowed for the thought to sink in, he washed it away with the contents of the jug.
“I need to piss,” he said gruffly and began to drag his feet towards the edge of the clearing. At once, panic seized Voden as the man oscillated towards their hiding place. He went to move but Andar grabbed him roughly, shaking his head. It would cause too much commotion.
The man stumbled over to the tree next to theirs and shifted himself, followed by a furious sound of his bladder being reprieved. The patter struck the needles as Voden held his breath. He dared not look up towards the man. It seemed time enjoyed the cruel joke played on them, allowing for the man to take what felt like eons to fully empty his bladder while Voden prayed it wouldn’t splash against his skin. Finally, the man sighed, adjusted himself, and turned back towards the fire.
It was now time to go. It was the most awkward experience Voden had had in recent memory, and he wanted to scrub it from his brain. He slid past Andar and whispered to him, “I’m done.” A branch cracked under his knee. Their eyes darted towards the camp, though the man didn’t seem to pay any attention to the noise. The other, though, was gone.
Voden felt his heart flooding with trepidation, but he tried to ease himself of the paranoia. Perhaps they were in the tent. He looked at Andar, who seemed to be thinking the same thing, and waved his hand, telling Voden they could leave. He nodded happily and started crawling out from under the tree. Suddenly, he heard the branches shift violently, and hands gripped his thick cloak, pulling him firmly through the piney branches.
“Voden?”
The voice was like crystal bells, and after a rather confusing moment of trying to shake off his attacker while attempting to gain his footing, Voden’s eyes caught sight of a familiar face. Yael stared at him just as stunned as he. Andar had rolled swiftly out from under the tree the very moment Voden was snagged, and his gauntlet had splintered and connected into the steely blade, pulsing with anxious blue energy. He had it all but raised to Yael’s throat when he, too, realized who it was and paused, stuck in a sphere of disbelief.
She kept staring at Voden as though she were trying to repudiate what her eyes had told her was real. Her face told Voden she could not accept the kind of luck she had received. She gripped his face with delight and pulled him in tight, placing her blush lips against his. Voden no longer thought of the fire. This was all the warmth he cared about.
“So, Vec,” Voden muttered, after she released him, his breath still tight in the lungs. “Drunk?”
“Always,” she responded, rolling her eyes. She looked at Andar, as the polygons splintered and retracted to their dormant vigil on Andar’s arm. Yael hugged him dearly, before continuing. “Come! I must know what happened. We were desperately worried about you!” She slipped thro
ugh the coniferous trees, Andar and Voden close behind. “Vec!” she called out, and the shadowed man abruptly turned, his body swinging vigorously around. “What were you saying about losing hope?”
He stared, ready to draw steel, wavering in the flickering light. He squinted his eyes with uncertainty then realized that the encroaching individuals were his wayward friends. “By the serpent’s jaw, Andar!” he laughed, tripping over his own feet to meet them. “Couldn’t have made that much easier for us!”
He clasped Andar’s hand and drug him in for a tight hug, expelling the air out of Andar’s lungs. He approached Voden as well and squeezed him tightly, as though making sure he was real. “Let’s drink to your return! I want to hear everything!” He marched off, ducking inside the tent, nearly losing his balance as he entered. Yael, Voden, and Andar took seats around the fire, and soon Vec appeared, kicking open the tent flap, somehow holding four jugs in his hands. He gave each of them a jug and then sat so he could begin to douse his throat with alcohol. He sat, rocking back and forth and sighed. “What happened to you two? I remember you in the grove, but you two just…vanished.”
Voden gave Andar a look before he pulled the crystal vial from the pocket inside his cloak. The vivacious liquid swished around like a miniature ocean, and allure radiated from inside. Vec became silent, setting his vessel of alcohol on the ground, extending his hands towards the vial. His eyes were enamored, as though the vial played a significant role in all his dreams and only rumors kept it alive. But his expression told of something deeper attached to it. Voden hesitated, giving Vec a quizzical look, but after a moment, he decided to allow Vec to hold it.