This week’s Friday Fiction is hosted by the talented Christina Banks @ her blog, With Pen on Hand. Click here to read and share more great fiction.
Author’s Note: I don’t quite have the energy to type as long a chapter as I would like, so this installment is fairly short. Barely the 1000 words, I believe I usually post. lol. Enjoy. I tried to put a touch of mystery in to make up for it. On a happy note, NaNoWriMo starts this weekend. WOOT!
Lunch was quite a satisfactory affair. Happily stuffed, Eira lounged against a tree, unable to resist a contented sight.
“Good lunch?” He asked, a slight smile playing around the corner of his mouth.
“Yeah.” A quiet burp escaped. “Really good…how’d you learn to cook anyway?”
“That is more necessity than experience.” He almost smiled. “Wash your dishes and keep them in your pack from now on, the river’s through there, we’ve been keeping parallel to it.”
“You had to learn to cook so you did?” Eira stretched forward, lazily, attempting to reach her toes. It was a lost effort that did not bother her as she yawned. “Let me guess, the river’s twelve steps ahead?”
He paused, deliberately for a moment, brow furrowed. “Actually…” He squinted towards the bush. “Probably fifteen…I forgot to count it for you, just a moment.” Scooping up the dishes and cooking pot, he headed for the bush. “Coming?”
Eira hurried after him. She watched, curiously as he placed one foot in front of the other and counted, hesitating on the fifteenth step. “Well?”
His eyes closed and then he smiled. “Fifteen. We’re right on schedule. Watch your step.”
“Why can’t you just zap them clean?”
“I am not so helpless or too proud that I cannot wash my own dish.” He snorted. “Besides, it’s a waste of energy and it is a good practice to personally care for your own things that contribute to your health and well-being.”
“Washing my plate?” Eira shook her head. “You lost me somewhere after helpless.” She wrinkled her nose. “I don’t think helpless has anything to do with it…I used to do that to mine all the time.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. It would drive Dana mad….she always fussed at me, because she’d have to do all her chores n’ stuff by hand and I would never have to touch anything.”
“Really?” The interest was quite plain in his voice. “I wouldn’t have pegged you for that.” He murmured absently. “Explains a lot though.”
“What?”
“Dana is your friend?” He smoothly shifted the conversation to a new topic.
Eira hesitated. “Um…no.”
“Ahh…enemy?” There was a hint of understanding in his voice.
“No!” Eira stared at him in shock. “Where’d that come from? She’s my older sister!”
The eyebrows arched higher than she had even seen before. “I was not aware that you had a sister.”
“I have three.” Eira scowled. “And they’re all older and they all think they know exactly what’s best for me.” She tossed her head at the memory. “It’s like having four mothers!”
“I see. Too much…mothering?”
“Smothering is more like it.” Eira shook the little white plate, beginning to rub it dry with the hem of her tunic.
He threw a dry washcloth her way. “Please do not do that…it will wear it out faster.”
Eira looked down at the tunic and picked up the towel. “Whatever.” She happily swabbed the plate and held it up to the light with another yawn. “I am so tired, I can’t believe it.”
“Stow your things, I’ll be there in a moment.” He motioned for her to throw the cloth back. She did, watching him as he methodically wiped and stacked the dishes.
By the time he returned to the clearing, Eira was still stuck in the same sleepy state. “I am really tired.” She mumbled, another yawn coming through as she shouldered her pack, half-heartedly fumbling with the straps.
“Eira?” He appeared at her elbow, a look of concern on his face. “Are you all right?”
She sniffled for a moment, vision blurring. “I don’t know.”
“How are you feeling?”
“Tired.” The admission came out as a whine. “And my feet hurt.” The whine was working down to a drawl.
“I think you need to sit down.” He took her arm, guiding her down. “Sit, close your eyes and breathe as normally as you can.”
“I don’t know how to breathe normally.” The words were a whisper and her head rolled forward as her body went limp.
He sighed. “I was wondering…” He began. “Then again, I suppose here is as good a place to spend the night as anywhere.” Stowing the dishes in his pack, he returned to make her more comfortable, propping her up with a blanket and pillow.
Studying her for a long moment, he finally bent and tugged her boots off. Checking the soles of her feet. He sighed. He could see the symbols carved on the bottom, and judging from the depth of her sleep, she didn’t appear to be aware of them. It had needed the energy to remain as they were, soft and flexible. Another degree of puzzlement overtook him as he set her boots to the side and wrapped her feet in another blanket. “You puzzle me.” He told her, still thinking. “You should not have those…least of all on your feet…” he sighed. “If there was more to you than you have told me, perhaps it would explain, but this…?” He bit back the words on the tip of his tongue, afraid it would slip through her subconscious.
Moving away to pace for a few lengths, he suddenly stopped. “Of course.” A slight smile played around his face as he set up the night barrier. “That does explain some of this, though I am most curious to know more about you, apprentice. For now, I shall settle for stealing your boots. I simply cannot allow you to wear them for another day…you have no real idea what they are doing to you.” It didn’t take more than a mere flicker of energy to replace the boots with the usual standard wear, at least¸ the standard for his regular apprentices. The actual boots were tucked away in another one of his energy voids for safe-keeping and later examination. He cast another look in her direction as he began to form the webbing necessary for the shield. There had to be something else behind her, something that was making her stay where she was and to keep up with him.
His mind shifted gears as he mentally reviewed the original routine he had worked out for her. It would have to be adjusted now, especially since her body’s need for energy was so accelerated to the point where it began the conversion process within a half-hour. The very meaning of it was rather disturbing, but he pushed it away for later thought.
Now was a time he would enjoy, merely because it was his own. As much as slacking off would prove a later obstacle in establishing a workable routine, he needed the break and the time for himself more than he cared for her to know at this moment.
A silent ripple of energy wavered through the air. He felt the familiar pull, and a wave of regret washed over him. I’m sorry. I cannot come to you sooner. I will come. He promised. I will come…just not…as quickly as usual.
Politely ending the communication between it and him, he returned to the task at hand. Once the shield was up and running, he moved to the center of the clearing and settled down for a long meditation.
* * * * * *
When the morning dawned the next day, Eira woke with a stiff feeling in her shoulders that quickly reached her toes. She winced, wishing her eyes didn’t have to open. A sleepy smile stole across her face as she remembered fuzzy, hazy memories of a delicious meal.
Her eyes popped open in surprise when the rest of the reality sank it. “Aiep!” The exclamation was mild in comparison to the sudden change in panic, neatly accompanied by horror. “Hello?”
The clearing was empty.
It was enough to send her scrambling to her feet, hurriedly cramming the bedroll and pillow into the tiny sack. It mushroomed over the side, seeming to grow larger as her motions became more frantic. There was no trace of the Dark Phoenix anywhere. His pack was gone and of course, one could not tell if there had been a fire in the clearing before.
Eira bit her lip, unprepared for the sudden flood of emotions attacking her. Surely he wouldn’t have left her. She couldn’t have been that horrible an apprentice that he couldn’t wait to get rid of her and had simply left for-the thought was interrupted.
“I’d fold it, if I were you. It will fit when you do.” His voice was quietly amused and he had come up beside her, noiselessly.
Eira jerked sideways, staring at him for a moment. In the moment that passed between them, her brain decided to function once more. “W-where’d you go?”
“Shower.” He tilted his head back towards the river pathway. “Something the matter?”
“I-I’ll skip the shower…don’t feel like getting drowned this morning.” She swallowed. “You were just over there?”
“Yes.” He paused to look at her. “Is everything okay?”
She bit her lip, then nodded.
“Good. Then fold that…stop squishing it.”
Her attention returned to the object in hand and she mechanically preformed the required action. It was gradually stuffed into the pack in a smaller form and when she finished she sat on top of it, following his movements with her eyes. “Eira?”
She straightened. “Yes?”
“What’s the matter?”
“Nothing.”
“Care to elaborate on nothing?”
“No.”
“I see.” He was quiet for a moment. “If you’re skipping your morning…drowning, can we go now?”
“Go? Now?” Her brain was fuzzing again. She stood, reaching for her back to realize two things. Her stomach growled and her feet hurt. The pack was immediately set down as she stared at her bare toes. “My shoes…”
“To your left.” He said, over his shoulder, digging something out of the ground. “Do hurry up, I have a feeling we should not stay here very long.”
© Sara Harricharan