Chapter 6: Short Lived

“Come on~ You’re the one who said we had to run, why are you being so slow?!” Nayleen demanded, tugging Sairek's arm along which caused him to fumble forwards, though it wasn’t enough to cause the exhausted Prince to be inspired to continue on a sprint again, he bent down, left hand on his left knee and leaning most of his weight onto his staff to his right.

“I– *huff…* I-I can’t anymore… Nayleen, I’ve been up since yesterday morning and I barely got to eat anything…” He pleaded through puffs of air, panting hard. Sweat was covering his forehead and his eyebrows and the late morning heat of summer was also starting to do him in. “And it’s been so hot this week… and these clothes are so heavy… I— I need a rest. We’ve been going pushing through all of this brush for hours now, surely we can sit down for just a little bit…?”

“Fiiiine… I guess it wouldn’t do any good if I was the one to kill you. That would be weird. Still, we can’t rest here though. If we’re going to rest, we need to find somewhere more suitable. I guess we don’t need water, since you seem to just be able to create it out of nowhere?”

“W-What…?” Sairek questioned, then shook his head hard. “N-No… It doesn’t work like that… you cannot drink conjured water.”

“Huh? Why not? It's water, isn't it? That's the point of it.”

“Anything conjured by magic disappears after a short while and then you’re just thirsty again. Some things like shifting what already exists around is more permanent, sure. And with magic water, you can use it for stuff like cleaning just fine since the idea is to wash the dirt or whatever else off, but drinking won’t do anything because it eventually disappears, and drinking too much of it and having it disappear all of a sudden can send a… bad sudden shock to the body with all of that water you drank just evaporating away like that.”

“...Huh?”

Sairek grimaced and sighed. “Normal water is good for the body. Magic water is bad for the body because magic water doesn’t stay inside the body. Understand?”

“But why?”

Sairek gave up.

“L-Look, I’ll be more than happy to teach you a lesson on the basics of magic later… Just know that we cannot use it to drink, alright?”

Nayleen tugged him along and they resumed moving, though at a more casual walk now. She had to pull Sairek along to keep up pace though more than he’d like. He was just getting too exhausted. He wanted to sleep so bad. He was so tired, he was worried he might actually just collapse onto the dirt and pass out. Soft dirt was starting to sound comfortable enough right now.

“Well, if we can’t use magic water, then we need to find a stream or something to drink at.” Nayleen continued.

“Don’t think there’s any around here… not clean ones, anyway. Just ocean water…”

“Geez. You’re such a downer. Can you bring good news for once? Okay. If that is also off the table, then we’ll find a clearing and forage other kinds of drink.”

“...Other kinds of drink…? Oh, you mean like juice from fruit?” Sairek asked.

“Exactly, there you go! Hey, look, over there seems like a decent spot.” She pointed with her free hand past a small brush of trees and bushes into a small little cleared pocket through all of the thickets.

They wormed their way through into it and Sairek let go of Nayleen’s hand and plopped hard against the base of a tree and groaned. “Oh sweet lands… my legs hurt so much. These clothes weren’t made to do anything athletic in them for that long…” He breathed out.

“You just sit there and rest, I’ll look around and see what I can find.” Nayleen said, already looking through the vegetation around them to survey their surroundings. “I’m sure we’ve left enough tracks that they can follow us, but we’re only moving as two and we’re smaller. It should take them some time to catch up. Be back soon!”

“W-Wait,” Sairek called out before and she froze her motion mid-steps like a stiff statue. “W-What if you get lost or something?”

“Pfft. This kind of stuff is literally what my parents and I do! I mean, the survival stuff I mean, not the whole… runaway thing. We're hunters! We track and hunt game, forage for local herbs, living off the land, y'know, that kind of stuff. I live in an even thicker forest than this, so have a little faith in me!” She gestured in a circular motion at him with her hand. “Anyway don’t go anywhere~” She called and shoved her way through some brush. Sairek heard her footsteps trotting away.

He leaned his head back and closed his eyes, still winded and trying to catch his breath. His head was swarming with so many things, but he was too tired to sort them out right now. The initial adrenaline of his little escape had worn off and the lack of sleep had caught up to him and caught up to him real hard after the first hour. Now over two more hours later and he was really struggling.

When he closed his eyes, the swarming thoughts in his head mellowed out into a foggy torrent and he fell asleep almost immediately.

Too soon however did he feel himself being shaken back into reality and he groaned in annoyance. “S-Stop…” he moaned under his breath. “It’s only been a few minutes…”

And then he felt a sudden slap on his face which made him become alert and he barked in pain. It didn’t really actually hurt that much, but it sure surprised him and it stung a little. Instinctively his eyes opened wide and he brought a hand up to his cheek to see Nayleen had, in fact, slapped him. “Ow! What the–?!”

“Well, you wouldn’t wake up.” Nayleen reasoned with a shrug. “Look! I brought ya apples!” She said, holding two up in her hand.

Sairek squinted at her. “It’s only been a few minutes… would prefer sleep, first.”

Nayleen blinked at him in confusion. “Uh, it’s been like, two hours. Look, I know I’m good at foraging but I’m not THAT good. I don’t make miracles happen.”

“...Two hours?” Sairek groaned, then sighed. Now that the initial alertness of the slap was wearing off, he felt more terrible and was starting to get a headache. Though he supposed two hours of sleep was better than nothing, but it sure didn’t feel like it at the moment. Right now, he felt even worse. He was not a morning person as it was. It took Laure multiple minutes to rouse him out of bed most of the time. Longer, if he’d been up for most of the night and hadn’t gotten a full night’s sleep.

Which he supposed, made Nayleen pretty efficient with slapping him.

With a resigned sigh, he reached out to grab the two apples from her hand. “Thanks…”

“Wow, you could try to at least sound it.”

“Sorry.” He replied, with far more genuine sincerity in his tone. “It’s a bit hard to sound how much I appreciate it when I still feel this terrible,” he frowned as he tried to explain.

"Aww, you're actually a sweet kid, aren't you?" Nayleen teased him.

Sairek bit into an apple and scrunched his face up slightly. It was more sour than he expected, though not enough to be unpleasant. He supposed any apple he ate at the castle was made more sweet to make them more delicious or something. His throat was parched enough that he dug in, drinking in as much of the fruit’s juice as he could. It probably wouldn’t do much, but at the moment, he would take what he could get. He realized he really should have raided the kitchen or… something before plotting this. All he had for supplies was a piece of paper that his father had written on. Those weren’t exactly great odds for making it very far in his mind, but Nayleen seemed resourceful enough, for now.
At least for the moment as he finished the second apple and fed himself right down to their cores, his stomach was content enough on food, so things wasn’t entirely going south. Also, he actually managed to escape from the castle. With help, sure, but he did it. He was free and that was liberating. Concentrating on those positive things helped him increase his inner confidence, but he couldn’t forget that people from the castle would no doubt be after him and would be tracking him down hard. Nayleen was probably good, but the castle would no doubt be better at this kind of thing...

Sairek wiped his arm across his mouth and slowly pushed himself to stand up. “I guess we’ll just keep walking to… to somewhere?” He mused and turned around, taking a second look at where they are. “I… don’t know where anything is though. This forest is pretty big and stretches for miles, except south, which is the ocean, so that’s no good either.”

“Well, you should know the local area better than me.” Nayleen said, crossing her arms.

“Well, Lamen is north and a little east of Marid, but considering I just ran away, that would not be a smart idea. They would be looking for me over there and… come to think of it, going to any town would be a bad idea for me...”

“For you, but maybe not for me. I doubt they got that good of a description of me.”

“True…” Sairek mused. “Not that I have any money...”

“Don’t need money. Just grab a little here and there, take what you need and most people won’t notice.”

“...Are you suggesting we steal?”

“Do you want to camp out in the open sky without shelter? I heard there’s this thing called rain that happens every few days where water falls on you and—”

“I get it.” Sairek cut her off. “I’ll… think about it.”

“North it is!” She pointed. “If the ocean is south that way, then north would be this way. Let’s go~!” She ordered, beginning to march off.

Sairek shook his head. Her energy was almost infectious. Almost.

“So… who exactly are you, anyway?” Sairek asked as they resumed their traveling.

“Didn’t we cover this already?”

“I mean specifics. Why did you run away from your home?”

“I was bored.”

“...Oookay, then why did you come over here to Ceareste?”

“I was bored.”

“...And over here in Marid?”

“I was bored.”

“... ... ...”

“What? Why are you looking at me like that?”

“It's... nothing.” Sairek sighed. Well, this was going nowhere. Or maybe it was. In which case, that was perhaps a little bit concerning.

“And what about you?” Nayleen asked him. “Is it just because your daddy is mean?”

“It’s for a lot of reasons. Least of which, I just want to learn to be independent and actually experience life."

"Ah! So you were bored, too!"

Sairek pressed his left palm into his face in a hard smack and groaned a sigh.

"...No?"

"Ughh... No, I'm not 'bored', I'm tired of being pushed around. The amount of times I’ve actually left Marid is only twice and only to accompany my father to my mother’s grave in Lamen. Even that was nearly six years ago...”

“Why wasn’t she buried in Marid?”

Sairek pulled his hand from his face and looked at her as he explained. “All of the Cearestian family members are buried there in Lamen. Marid may be the capital, but Lamen is the city. It holds the monastery there and that’s where the members of the royal family are buried. I don’t know why specifically it's like this, but that’s just how it's been. The castle has a village around it but definitely not a city.”

“Huh. Weird. Not even allowed to visit your mother’s grave when you want to. Yeah, that is a bit of a mean thing to do.” Nayleen said, sounding much more serious than she seemed to generally be. “So where do you wanna go, long term?”

“...I don’t know. Yggdrasil, I guess? It’s neutral ground at least. Probably the only place father wouldn’t be able to touch me in the short term... Border crossing into Kior would be difficult, though…”

“Well, technically it would count as trespassing, but for safe harbor for Yggdrasil, it’s usually overlooked. Just because it’s on Kiorian soil officially, doesn’t mean people can just be denied passage to it unless they're a known wanted criminal and you running away may be a crime in your father's eyes but not in the case of the law. It’s how I got through. Though there's other methods of sneaking by, too.”

“...You weren’t kidding about the lax security.”

“Nope!”

“How is it safe guarded then?” Sairek asked.

“It’s not necessarily their business to stop people from going in and out to visit Yggdrasil. It’s a holy place after all. Their job is more or less to make sure nobody messes with the tree or the area around it. A few baddies going in is no problem, they can’t do anything. An army though would be problematic. That’s what the council concentrates their efforts on. Also, no banished demons, obviously.” Nayleen explained.

“Not that I can imagine most banished demons would want to go in there anyway.” Sairek drawled. "That is the worst place for them to be."

“Those who seek redemption from Yggdrasil do, but the process is pretty long and strict by design. Seeking forgiveness and asking to be reborn in the next life should be pretty difficult, I guess. It’s not something the vast majority of demons manage to do, but it does happen. Either way, I guess your main worry for now should be just getting away from here.”

“Right…” Sairek mumbled, looking around, and then his eyes widened. “Your right–!” He shouted.

“Huh?” Nayleen let out in confusion at his shout, accidentally mistaking Sairek’s warning to look to her right as if he was shouting ‘you’re right’, so instead of looking to her right side, she looked behind herself at him instead, allowing her to be an easy target as a form blurred past Sairek as it tackled Nayleen. She let out a yelping curse before both her and the figure disappeared into the brush, where he could hear struggling quickly begin to ensue.

Flaming Lands, had they seriously been found already?

He supposed that if he truly wanted to, he could forget Nayleen and just run, but he would never forgive himself for doing that. Even if he did get away and used her as 'bait', it’s not like he had any survival training on his own, he’d probably wander around in the forest, lost until he starved or… something possibly worse. Though, slamming those rational logics into his brain didn’t do much to hold down his instinctual ‘flight’ response.

Against what his instincts were telling him, he ran to Nayleen's aid, rummaging through the bushes where she and the figure had toppled through. When he emerged onto the other side, he was greeted with the sight of Nayleen being held in a hold by a knight, keeping her arms pinned against him. A knight as part of the castle patrol wasn’t common, but even though Ceareste was a country primarily of magic, sometimes there were some things just pure good old muscle was better equipped to deal with. After all, having a backline of casters when dealing with either bandits or the occasional monster didn’t do much good if nothing prevented said trouble from getting up close and personal or, in this case, was useful for tracking two runaways down.

Nayleen of course was struggling and pulling in the man’s grip, but it didn’t look like he was having much trouble keeping her in his hold at all. Apparently, when strength for Nayleen didn’t work, her mouth went to work for her instead. “Dammit! You asshole! Let me go! Hey Sairek! Hurry and beat this jack-rat up for me!”

“Will you be quiet? Lands.” The man sighed, moving a gloved hand over Nayleen’s mouth. It quieted her protests somewhat. “Prince, you are to return to the castle immediately." He demanded, then glanced down at Nayleen with a sigh. "Little lady, please stop biting down on my glove. They're designed to protect from swords. Your teeth aren't going to work.”

Sairek shook his head slightly. Well, at least Nayleen has... tenacity. “Listen, you. I have no intentions of going back to the castle and I won’t return unless it is of my free will and absent of father’s orders.” Sairek answered plainly.

The knight rolled his eyes. “Oh, please. Your thoughts don’t matter in this instance. What would you even go to do, where would you even go?”

“That's exactly the problem...! I want to do whatever I want and go wherever I want! And nobody cares, they only care about what they want from me!” Sairek spat. "Enough is enough! I'm a person, not an object! I am more than just my title!"

“You don’t fully comprehend the dangers that may be lurking outside the village walls. I don’t know who this girl is, but her dragging you and assisting in your escape; we will be sure to punish her greatly if you do not return.” The knight warned him.

“I comprehend the dangers far more than my father comprehends his own son's feelings, apparently!”

The man’s eye twitched and his mood darkened as Nayleen gave him a kick to the shin. It didn’t really hurt him with the armor, but her constant struggling with Sairek's insistent refusal was clearly beginning to annoy him if anything else. “How you feel does not matter boy. You are going to come back to the castle, even if I have to drag you back by that cape of yours while you kick and flail!”

“I wouldn’t give you the satisfaction of that. Of course, I don’t intend to get caught at all.” Sairek said through clenched teeth, his grip on his staff tightening, energy building up into the weapon slowly, trying to be discreet about it. He was a knight, but this was Ceareste. Practically everyone had at least a basic or even intermediate understanding of magic, no matter their preferred method of combat. Knowledge was power, after all and he didn’t want the man to notice he was cooking anything up. “But it truly must be easy to tell me my feelings don’t matter, when you’ve given up needing to care for your own, right? Just follow the orders. Who cares what you think or feel? Wouldn’t want a broken machine in the system. Unlike Kior, we can’t fix those. Father must just throw the machines away and scour the country for a new one that's more compliant. You want me to end up like you...? No thanks.”

“I do my job. If I don’t do my job, I don’t get paid. If I don’t get paid, my wife and my little daughter back in Lamen do not get to eat and lose the roof over their heads which shelters them. Of course you wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?” The man spat venomously.

Sairek shook his head. “No. I wouldn’t. That’s why I want to try to understand, but I do appreciate the new insight.” He said sincerely.

“Do you? If you did, then you should realize what happens to this little girl if you continue to resist. What she has done could be considered treason.”

“It can’t be. She’s not a Cearestian citizen.” Sairek clarified.

“That’s… not much better. She could sit in jail for a long time.”

Sairek clenched his jaw tight. “You can’t, she’s twelve—”

“I’m thirteen, thank you very much!” Nayleen managed to shout through the man’s glove.

Sairek clasped his left hand to his forehead. Why did she have to say that? “Nayleen…”

“Well, I appreciate the honesty, Miss. Old enough to indeed be punished. Not sure if you’re just cooperating with me or—”

“Let me go and I’ll show you how much I want to kick your ass!” She yelled with a good strong wiggle against his grip, though still failing to succeed in breaking out.

The man sighed and covered her mouth again and spoke over her muffled curses once more. “So what will it be, Prince? Will you come willingly and we let her go with only a slap on the wrist, or will you refuse and be returned to the castle by force and both face extreme punishment?”

Sairek ground his teeth together. Surrendering now would be the best option. He was holding in a spell, but with Nayleen being held as a ‘hostage’, there wasn’t much he could really do without hitting her as well. He wasn’t going to just run without her, but at the same time, curse his pride, he didn’t want to give in. He had made it this far already. He was out of the castle, out of the town, he wanted to go further—so much more further… Further than this.

He looked at Nayleen, and the look in her own eyes reassured him. He stopped tensing his muscles with insecurity, letting his muscles become lax a little and stood up more straight. “I still refuse.”

Right when he said that was when he heard a faint clap in the distance to his left and he only managed to turn halfway around towards the sound before a giant rock slammed right into him, breaking on impact and causing him to let out a huffed grunt in pain. It carried enough force to knock him right off of his feet and go flying a few yards and sprawling on the ground several more yards until he impacted against the base of a tree trunk. The spell he had been preparing fizzled out and he could only lay on the ground with a labored groan, dazed, everything momentarily red and dizzy in his vision.

He struggled to regain his balance and tried shaking his head to get his senses back straight, having to use his staff to struggle back onto his feet slowly, barely.

“Samuel, it’s so nice of you to finally show yourself...” The knight greeted sarcastically.

Sairek looked upwards woozily and scowled, seeing the man and his robes approaching from the thicket. He had probably been here the entire time, just watching, waiting for the final claim of refusal.

“Well, shit...” Sairek swore under his breath.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you again, Prince.” Samuel greeted him. "I'm sure the feeling is not mutual."

“...Why do you always enjoy making my days so awful…?” Sairek groaned.

Samuel smiled in genuine amusement. “I don’t do anything to make your days awful. You bring it upon yourself.”

Well, he had to admit that Samuel was not entirely being untrue, in a way...

Samuel kept walking closer to him and Sairek could only give a threatening look which he was pretty sure was fairly unconvincing given the circumstances since the smile Samuel had only widened, but he stopped his approach towards Sairek anyway. “I would have hoped the first time would have taught you a lesson, but then you just went and did it again, except even bigger than the first time.”

“Can you do us both a favor… and save your breath…?” Sairek groaned. Damn, his body ached…

Samuel chortled now. “Ah, I suppose you should do the same then. Wasting such energy on quips when you look like you already don’t have any to spare yourself. You must be exhausted from all of that running. Last time you survived more than just a little rock.”

Little rock? Damn, he hated him.

“I know about the little ‘deal’ you made with your father. Yet you immediately got up and ran away anyway! I guess you’re just not up for the challenge.”

“As if… do you think I’m that stupid…? What’s the point of trying to do something so weighted against me? I only made him write it on paper so I would have a constant physical reminder on how he actually feels about me whenever I felt like I may have started to become homesick after I left!” Sairek shouted, genuine pain in his voice.

Samuel sighed. “I’m guessing this means you’re still resisting… fine then…” Then he clapped his hands once more.

Sairek gulped. He felt himself seize up and lifted up off of the ground a few seconds later, just like last time.

And then unlike last time, he felt himself abruptly pulled towards Samuel—fast.
Right into the man’s outstretched fist, which connected into his gut.

Sairek released a breathless gasp and choked an airless cough as he could suddenly move, but he doubled over. There wasn’t any real pain as if he had been actually punched in the gut, but the wind had been completely knocked out of him and his body just—gave up. He collapsed onto the ground in a helpless heap, struggling to get air in, but unable to get enough and the world around him seemed distant. He heard Nayleen making muffled sounds and the other two men talking, but it was just all an incoherent echo. Sairek managed to open his eyes a crack and lift his head a little as he continued to try to gasp for air, but the only thing he managed to do with any sort of effort was keep a grip on his staff, as true to the knight’s word, he soon began to be dragged back to the castle by his cape.