Author’s Ramblings: Would you like to celebrate my 100th post? LOL. I’m happy to share it with you. I almost skipped Eira and DP’s tale again this week, but couldn’t quite forgive myself for it, so I sat and wrote out another chapter of their adventures, hence, the lateness of this post. My apologies! Eira is learning quickly, but is still adjusting to the curveballs being hurled her way. She has learned from the last time though, to be quiet early on in meditations. ^_^ I’ve got a good twist coming up, as long as I stay on track, as I plan on participating in National Novel Writing Month in November(if you’re interested in learning more about this phenomenal event, check it out at www.nanowrimo.org) . Have a great weekend and happy writing!
By the time the Dark Phoenix had announced the end of a torturous half-hour, Eira was dying to be on her feet again. She immediately sprang upwards the moment his lips finished the words.
“Time’s up.”
“Finally!” Eira rolled her neck, then her shoulders, bending to touch her toes. “Ugh. I feel like a rock.”
“That is not the proper way to end your meditations.”
His serious tone sliced through her new happy bubble. “There’s a proper way to end sitting still and quiet for hours?”
“You were meditating for exactly one minute past half an hour.” He sighed. “And yes, there is a way, but I do not have the patience to explain it at this precise moment. Sit over there, somewhere and amuse yourself until I am through.”
“Through with what?”
“My half of meditations.” He tilted his head. “I don’t want to hear you.”
“What am I supposed to do?”
“Nothing, I hope.” He said, sarcastically. “Short of interrupting me and anything involving excessive noise or movement that would fall under the category of deliberate distraction-amuse yourself-particularly since you will not have a free hour tonight.”
“Oh. Right.” Eira started towards the tree where her pack lay next to his. “Wait a minute, why am I having any free time at all then? I mean, like, I’m curious…sort of. And I don’t do anything but sleep in the afternoon, why should it matter-”
He cleared his throat, both eyes still closed. “Climb a tree or something. Rest your feet. Sit down and think. I need this time, Eira…and I need you to acknowledge what it means for me….please?”
The please on the end was an addition Eira hadn’t been expecting. She hesitated. “Okay…um-”
“There’s a wooden puzzle in my pack, solve it.” He interrupted, stiffly. “Don’t ask me anything about it, don’t talk or mutter to yourself, just solve it.”
The thought was intriguing enough and Eira headed for his pack. To her surprise, it was virtually empty, with nothing but a pair of socks and the wooden puzzle to the left of them. She turned to ask the question on the tip of her tongue and bit it back.
His head had tilted forward until his chin was touching his chest and his entire body seemed to have lost all strength to it, simply, limp as he sat. Eira snatched up the puzzle and retreated to the space farthest away from him, plopping down comfortably on the ground, she began to examine the wooden square.
It was quite some time later before she heard footsteps and by the time she’d torn her gaze away from the cryptic square of wood, the Dark Phoenix was standing over her, offering a hand up. “Ready?”
“Yeah…I think. I couldn’t solve this…I don’t know what the puzzle is.” She placed it in his outstretched hand.
“That wasn’t one.” He tucked it inside her over-tunic pocket, and caught hold of her arm, helping her up. “I commend you on the ability to remain silent when you are thoroughly absorbed in another activity. I do appreciate it when you follow orders and that was quite excellently…followed.” His mouth twitched. “And we’ve spent too much time here already, at least to be on schedule for now. We need to be moving, so come along.”
Eira readily grabbed her bag, hurrying after him. “So wait a moment, it wasn’t really a puzzle? That was the puzzle? That it wasn’t a puzzle?”
“That wasn’t a puzzle to begin with.”
“Then why did you tell me it was!”
“Why did you take my opinion of an inanimate object and base your assumptions off of a single sentence with no fact to it?”
“Fact?”
“How do you know I was or wasn’t telling you the truth?”
“You weren’t?” Eira frowned. “Or you were?”
“A little of both.” His mouth twitched. “I did not lie, if that is what you are getting at.”
“You didn’t lie, but you couldn’t tell me the puzzle was fake?”
“It isn’t.” He reached into his pack and brought out the lumpy sock. “The pieces are in here.”
“Pieces?” Eira blinked. “Wait a minute…there was more than one?”
“I made them all available to you when I directed you to them.” He scooped out the handful and extended the cluster of wooden shapes toward her.
It took both hands to accept the ‘gift’ and Eira could only stare at them for a moment before she realized he was waiting on her. “Oh. Oops. Just a moment.” She trickled the puzzle pieces carefully into the pocket and hurried to catch up to where he held the branches aside for her to pass through.
“Solve it later.” He advised. “Watch where you’re walking for now.”
“Speaking of which…where exactly am I walking?”
“On a pathway.”
“Well, duh, I already know that, I mean like, where am I?” She blinked. “I mean, where are we?”
“Any particular reason you wish to know?”
“There has to be a reason?”
“Yes.”
“I want to know?”
“You are asking me or telling me?”
“I don’t know. Pick one.”
“Which one?”
“I just said I didn’t know.”
“Then excuse me for thinking that you truly do not need to know, so I am overlooking that particular question.”
“Too many particulars.” Eira muttered.
“What?”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“For your sake, I will not ask you to repeat it.” He countered. “We need to be moving faster.” He hesitated and the glance thrown over his shoulder was aimed at her feet.
Eira instinctively curled her toes within the precious boots. She was not giving up on this one. “My feet are fine!” Her grip on the pack tightened.
He frowned. “Come here.” Eira inched forward. He spun his finger for her to turn around. She hesitated. “Eira.”
There was a loud sigh as Eira slowly rotated, biting her tongue to keep from blurting anything out loud. He reached over her shoulder and took the pack, and within a few minutes had it securely fastened to her back. He gave the straps an extra tug as he circled back around. “When I said faster, I meant it. Try and keep up for a few minutes, while I decide on a suitable means of transport.”
“Suitable means of what?” Eira scrambled after him as he took off again, at his usual brisk pace. “How fast are we talking about?”
“Faster than you’re going, that’s for sure.”
His voice was rather faint and Eira looked upwards to see him standing quite a ways away. “Hey! How’d you get there?”
“By walking.” He shifted impatiently as she caught up. “And I can already tell this is not going to work. Give me your hand.”
“Why?” But even as she asked, Eira was already extending it. She had begun to resign herself to the fact that arguing or questioning was merely a delay to whatever outcome he already had in mind.
“Take a deep breath.” He instructed, grasping her hand firmly in his. “When do you breathe, try not to think about it and take small, short breaths out of the side of your mouth. There will be several types of strain, the least of which is physical.” His eyes narrowed. “It is called speed-traveling and one of these days I shall explain it fully to you.” His free hand moved to this throat and touched a silver charm dangling from a jade cord.
The symbol was familiar, but Eira couldn’t quite remember what it stood for. A tiny tingling feeling traveled up her arm and in the following seconds, she understood-briefly-why he’d asked her to take small breaths.
It had to be the symbol for speed. No sooner had he finished speaking, when a powerful surge of energy rippled through him and then to her, there was a strong pull and then everything was blurring.
Eira was vaguely aware that they were quite nearly flying, as the scenery blurred into solid walls of green, gray and then blue at some point. Time was an entirely different thing, because as before, when he had taken control of her feet, it had all merged into a giant blank block of nothingness.
When her stomach began to growl, the blurring slowed and then he threw a question over his shoulder. “Lunchtime?”
Answering was virtually impossible, for the moment she opened her mouth, all the air was snatched from her lungs. In the moment where she thought she would die, everything stopped.
Dying was almost easier.
Eira slammed full-force into strong arms and something else which cushioned the fall. There was a polite cough and then she found herself lying on the ground, staring up into the midday sky.
“Breathe, slowly.” He instructed. “I am beginning to wonder what exactly they taught you at the basic training.”
“Nothing about this.” She gasped. It hurt to think. It hurt worse to breathe.
“So I see.” He tapped her forehead. Another tingle of energy ran through her. “You’ll be fine. The first time is usually the worst.”
“Usually?”
He almost laughed, there was an apologetic look on his face. “I suppose I should apologize again, I sometimes forget a few things…I was not aware that you hadn’t traveled by speed before.”
“I haven’t traveled by anything before.” The ache and burn in her throat was easing, slightly, though ever so slowly.
“You’ve traveled by transport and the old-fashioned way.” He chuckled aloud, this time. “Feeling better yet?”
“Yeah.” She winced. “Can I sit up?”
“You will probably feel better if you stay there for a few more minutes. I will give you that.”
“I’ll take it.”
“Good. Your second meditations will begin when those few minutes are up.”
“WHAT?”
“In a few minutes.”
“I’m hungry.”
“You can eat when you’re through.”
“I’m really hungry!”
“It will take time for your lunch to cook.” He countered. “I am trying to put together a suitable routine for your training, humor me. Meditations will help the time go more quickly.”
“More slowly, you mean.” She muttered. “I don’t need a routine.”
“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that one either.” He said, cheerfully. “and I know you’re doing quite well now. Up.”
“Now?”
He extended a hand, tapping her leg with his boot. “Now is fine.”
“Only five minutes this time, right?”
“Good girl.” He slung his pack to the ground, beside hers. It had mysteriously come undone and was now resting neatly at the base of a tree.
A quick glance around revealed that they had stopped at another one of the circular green groves and ripe fruit hung plentifully from the limbs of several trees. Eira closed her eyes for a moment, thinking. She wasn’t sure if more fruit would satisfy her stomach.
“Something the matter?”
“More fruit?” She asked, plaintively.
He chuckled. “No. I would not ask you to live on fruit while enduring such a physically taxing journey.”
“What, then?”
“Meditations first.” He was calm, as he removed his cape and folded it, setting it on top of the pack. “Now, what must we do first?”
“We?”
“Focus, Eira.”
“I am, I am….um, right. Focus. A center! We need a center.”
“Close…two centers.”
“Two centers?
“Keep thinking…”
“Oh.” Eira bit back a smile, she stared upwards into the sky, moving about until she decided on a center in the clearing. “Center up there…and center in myself?”
“Quick study.” He congratulated. “Shift a bit to your left.”
“Why? I’m in the middle?”
“When you share a center, as in, more than one, the center must be…centered, between all parties.”
“Oh. I guess that makes sense.” Eira shuffled over a few steps, then squinted back up at the ceiling. “Right here?”
“There is good.” He settled down, cross-legged, sitting opposite of you. “Begin.”
“Now?”
“Six minutes.”
“Oops. Right.”
“Seven minutes.”
Eira bit back the retort, settling down. Lunch would be quicker in coming if meditations did not take any longer than absolutely necessary.
© Sara Harricharan