Nayleen turned around to face the glowing eyes with a jolt, brandishing her daggers and stepping towards them unintimidated. She twirled her dagger in her right hand to bring it upright and pointed the blade of it directly at the eyes. “Who are you?!” She demanded in a clearly hostile and threatening tone.
Sairek blinked when the eyes became a little larger from widening in fear as the form stepped back, letting out a surprised, frightened “Ah! P-Please don’t hurt me!” It sounded like it was coming from a boy even younger than both Nayleen and himself.
“N-Nayleen! Calm down!” Sairek ordered her from the cave floor. She glanced at Sairek and moved to step back closer to him protectively. Sairek reached for his jewel and muttered “Balinzer,” under his breath softly. It wasn’t much light and he was concerned about how much energy this would eat up, but the jewel successfully glowed with warm light like a candle, providing at least a little bit of illumination, though only a soft glow directly in front of Sairek. “C’mon, help me up.” He whispered to Nayleen.
She glanced at him unsure, but she shoved her left dagger back into its sheath and used that arm to help prop Sairek up. Sairek winced and grunted an ‘ow’ under his breath as his back protested from the movement. Standing up and shuffling a step closer, the little 'candle light' was just enough to illuminate the figure, who Sairek saw was holding his staff.
The boy ahead of them was indeed smaller than Sairek, standing no taller than just four feet even—perhaps maybe an added inch. He was dressed in a tan-yellow robe almost matching Sairek’s tabard, though bleached in more yellow, that draped over his form almost completely, the neck of the collar of the robe being a more traditional yellow that almost went from his lower shoulders nearly up to the boy’s chin, and had two black buttons on the front. The ends of his robe was almost touching the ground, but still revealed simple leather shoes streaked with white on the side of the heels and over top of the toes. He wore light gray leather gloves ending with an orange-brown stripe at the wrists and they were currently holding Sairek’s staff in his left hand, while holding a book with his right.
The book was fairly large and the cover seemed to be made out of leather, but it was purple, with four hollow golden trimmed triangle-like shapes on each corner of the book, followed by a larger but also hollow diamond shape in the center of its cover. There was no title Sairek could read on it though, which made him believe the book itself may be some kind of magical tome instead of a traditional book.
The boy himself had ashen white hair, almost white like snow. It was for the most part combed even and cleanly with the length on the front going down to just his eyebrows and a little past his ears on the side, but there were a couple bangs of his hair that parted a little away from the rest of the cut on the sides of his head here and there, like when one combed their hair and that part just refused to completely cooperate with the rest of the comb job. His eyes were big, but still glowed that garnet color, even through the dim light. Right now though, instead of looking threatening, he was clearly cowering in front of Nayleen, his eyes enlargened and widened in fear.
“Come on, put that knife away.” Sairek scolded Nayleen, eyeing her dagger still in her right hand.
“But—” Nayleen began to protest.
“Does it look like he’s going to attack us…? He doesn't even have a weapon and isn't even holding the staff threateningly.”
“Fiiinneee..." She surrendered, putting her other knife away.
Sairek watched her do so, before looking at the other boy who looked like he was about to run. “I’m sorry about that. She just wants to keep me safe.”
The boy looked at Sairek, which was easy to tell with where his glowing eyes giving away where he was looking, but he still didn’t say anything back.
“If you don’t mind… that staff you have there is mine… do you think you could give it back to me, please?” Sairek asked gently.
At first, it seemed like he wasn’t going to respond again, but his eyes shifted to look at Nayleen for a few seconds, then back to Sairek. Finally, his small voice spoke up for the first time since he pleaded with Nayleen. “I-If I come closer… she’s… not going to hurt me because of my eyes…?”
“You heard him, Nayleen.” Sairek said dryly.
“Wh–!? You ass!” She cursed and then puffed her cheeks up. “Just what is that supposed to mean, exactly? You better show proper manners to someone when they’re the ones helping you stand upright, you know!”
“Like you show any manners to me—ouch…” Sairek winced, recoiling his foot back when Nayleen stomped on it fairly firmly.
Both Sairek and Nayleen turned to look at the boy, who buried his mouth behind the back of his left hand, stifling a soft chuckle. He held it back completely and slowly stepped forwards towards them, stopping in front of Sairek. He pulled his hand away from his mouth to present the staff to Sairek, who reached out and took it.
“Thank you...” Sairek said graciously. He held the staff up into the air once more slowly. “Balinzer!” he chanted, calling forth the flames into the staff once more to brighten up their surroundings even more, then he whisked the light from his jewel out to conserve what energy it had left in it. “So um… what are you doing here if I may ask…?” Sairek gestured at the other boy.
“I… I could ask you the same thing…” The boy replied with a gentle tilt of his head.
“Can we do this outside of the cave?” Nayleen mumbled, turning to Sairek. “Holding you up with one arm is tiring.”
“...Right, I’m sorry.” The boy apologized and with his left hand, he pointed. “The entrance is just back this way. Follow me.”
Sairek winced, using his staff for leverage to help him walk as Nayleen pushed him along gently. The boy jogged up ahead and turned around waiting for them to catch up, before jogging another few paces ahead and waiting again, allowing them to work their way back to the mouth of the cave. They hadn’t been in there for very long, but Sairek was thankful when they reached the outdoors again, where Nayleen slowly sat him back down, causing Sairek to hiss in pain.
“What happened?” The boy asked.
“There was a giant slime in there. Sairek here blasted it with fire.” Nayleen began to explain. Then it exploded into chunks and it sent him flying. His back collided hard into a wall and now he’s like this.”
“Slime? ...You must be referring to the one that moved here a few weeks ago, then.” The boy said, glancing back towards the mouth of the cavern.
“...Moved in? Slimes can do that?” Nayleen asked.
“Yes. They like the quiet of caves. When they form outside, they kind of idly wander around until they find such a place and then they stay there. Noise is what usually sets them off.” The boy explained.
“Oh, is that so then…” Sairek mumbled dryly, slowly turning his head to glare his emerald eyes directly at Nayleen.
“...Oops~” She said absently with a shrug.
The boy blinked his garnet eyes at them both, looking them over briefly. Out in the sunlight, they looked fairly normal, aside from the color being rather... unique. “M-My name is Cyial... Cyial Rylai. I am an Acolyte from the Lamen monastery.”
“Hey, Lamen was the place we were heading to, right?” Nayleen asked Sairek.
“Yes…” Sairek answered her.
“Aha, well like I said, this is Sairek, and I am Nayleen. Pleasure to meet you. Sorry for pointing my daggers at you earlier.”
“Th...That’s fine.”
“So if you were in the cave, then that must mean there is ethereal in the cave, right?” Nayleen assumed.
Cyial nodded slowly, moving to hold his book close to his chest and holding it to himself with both of his arms. “I run... or, at least try to run an errand for the monastery every week to this cave. That slime showed up here a few weeks ago though, so I sort of started coming here a bit less. Somebody was supposed to come take care of it already weeks ago, but they didn’t want to go because they… uh, well... Because of reasons…” Cyial mumbled.
“Well, I guess that explains why the shipments to Marid have been late, then.” Nayleen shrugged at Sairek with a frown. “Unless that slime can reconstruct though, it should be fine now.” She said, then paused and looked at Sairek. “...They uh, can’t do that… can they?”
“No.” Sairek answered simply.
“Oh, good.”
“If you two would like, I will go get you some ethereal. It should help Sairek feel better, too.” Cyial suggested.
“You can see just fine in the dark?” Sairek asked.
Cyial nodded. “You… probably already saw, but my eyes are… um, special.” He almost whispered.
“Are you sure there’s nothing else in there?” Nayleen asked.
Cyial nodded. “There was nothing else here two weeks ago when I was last here. Not much really comes in there. The slime probably came in there because of the quietness of the cave and it might have been attracted to the spring too. It’s probably why it grew so big.”
“Say, would one of my waterskins work for holding that stuff?” Nayleen asked, holding it up.
“Sure, I don’t see why not.” Cyial replied.
“Great! Bottoms up~” She cheered, opening it up and starting to guzzle what remained in it down, before she pulled the waterskin back and handed it to Cyial.
“I’ll be right back in a few minutes. Please don’t try to move too much as to not make the damage worse, Sairek.” Cyial warned him.
“No worries on that…” Sairek mumbled.
Cyial soon disappeared back inside the cave. Nayleen moved to sit down beside Sairek, closer to the mouth of the cave than he. Then out of nowhere, she let out a loud belch.
“Gross… What the heck, Nayleen...” Sairek groaned.
“Sorry. I might have drank the water a bit too fast.” She grinned.
“Come on… can’t you just give me a rest from this? This seriously hurts…” Sairek winced.
“You’ll be right as rain in a couple of minutes. C’mooonnn, I complained less when I broke my leg from trying to climb a tree when I was six!"
Sairek sighed. Thankfully for him, Cyial wasn’t even gone for five minutes. He soon stepped back outside as the two just sat in silence waiting for him to return. Both Sairek and Nayleen looked up at him as he stepped out. “I’m back. How is he holding up?” The smaller boy asked.
“He’s a-okay!” Nayleen said quickly.
“Like a Jack-rat on fire that I’m okay! This hurts badly, Nayleen!” Sairek hissed at her in his annoyance.
“See? He's okay.” She replied in a casual tone and dismissive wave of her hand.
Cyial blinked at both of them twice, then dug inside pockets of his robe, pulling out Nayleen’s waterskin and he stepped forwards to hand it over to Sairek. “You should only need to take a couple gulps of it, but watch out, it’s going to taste very bitter.”
“Never drank ethereal before… guess there’s a first for everything, though…” Sairek sighed. He took hold of the waterskin and tilted his head back a bit before he tilted the water skin as well with the top of it against his lips and let the liquid pour in generously…
...And choked, jerking more upright and just managing to resist spitting the liquid back out. His eyes squeezed shut as he forced himself to swallow what was in his mouth down and his eyes continued to water and sting from him doing so.
“Pff…Pleeehhhh! S-Sweet Lands that tastes AWFUL…!” He squeaked, his voice hoarse. Why did ‘life energy’ taste so terrible? People managed to make food out of this stuff? Really?
“I warned you…” Cyial mumbled softly.
“Well, it tastes awful, but you’re moving around just fine now!” Nayleen noted.
He didn’t even notice, but she was right. He couldn’t feel any pain at all in his back anymore. He flexed some and… yes, no pain at all. “Wow… she’s right…” Sairek mumbled. “Oh, right, I almost forgot…”
He tilted the water flask some and allowed some of the ethereal to pour out onto his jewel. By now, it was now a yellow-orange color, but that quickly changed as he trickled drops of ethereal down onto himself, which seemed to somehow just fall right on top of the jewel even if they weren’t exactly dead on and would have spilled on his clothes instead. It was like the ethereal itself was being magnetized towards the jewel and when it made contact, it was like watching the world’s strongest sponge just gather up the liquid and absorb it almost instantly. Before too long, the jewel was back to its normal white twinkling shine with the small soft blue specks in it.
“Phew… hopefully that means no more distractions on our way to Lamen now, right?” Nayleen asked.
“Yes, I think what’s left in this should last the rest of the way and we have the other smaller vial as well just in case. We can probably get the rest of what we need when we arrive at Lamen.” Sairek answered.
“You may as well ask already by the way, I know you want to.” Nayleen told him.
“...Huh?” Sairek blinked at her. “Beg your pardon?”
Nayleen motioned her head towards Cyial with a jerk. The other boy wasn’t even paying attention to them currently. His back was facing them and he was staring at the mouth of the cave in thought.
“Cyial, are you okay?” Sairek asked.
Hearing his name called, the other boy visibly jerked back to reality. “O-Oh! I’m sorry. I… I tend to space out sometimes in thought when I’m out here. I usually take a little bit of a break here, but I’m running a bit late, so I guess I don’t have time for that. That storm last night slowed me down a lot…”
“It’s fine.” Nayleen reassured him. “Say, Sairek here wanted to invite you to come with us back to Lamen if you’re done here, that is, if you don’t mind?”
“Huh? I never—” Sairek began, then pressed his mouth closed.
“Shhh…” Nayleen glanced back at him.
“I mean, I am done here, so yeah I would be going back to Lamen…” Cyial answered.
“Great! It works out then, right?” Nayleen cheered.
“W-Well… I suppose, but I um… usually have a hard time getting back into the city sometimes… and then there’s times I can’t get in at all. I wouldn’t want the same to happen to you two because you were with me…”
Nayleen blinked at Cyial before glancing back at Sairek. “...Is it usually hard for people to get into the city?” She asked.
Sairek slowly shrugged. “How should I know? But, with me, it shouldn’t be a problem, Cyial.”
“What makes you so sure, though…?” Cyial asked.
Nayleen hooked a thumb at Sairek. “I mean, he’s the Prince. If they don’t let him in, then he’ll just fire them on the spot or something.” She said.
“P...Prince…? Wait, Sairek… you mean Sairek Ceareste–?” Cyial stammered, staring at Sairek.
“Oh yeah, I kinda forgot about that detail when introducing ourselves. Sorry.” Nayleen said casually.
“You just forgot…? You make it sound like it's so simple…” Sairek muttered dryly at her.
“Well, that’s ‘cuz it is.” Nayleen replied. "You are just so casual about it, y'know?"
“Lands…” Sairek hung his head and sighed.
“I… I’m sorry…! I didn’t know you were the Prince… I—” Cyial’s form shook and he looked even more nervous now than when Nayleen pointed a dagger at him. “I’m… I’m not worthy–!”
“No, no, please stop. There’s no need to act like that.” Sairek cut in. “Just because I happen to be Prince doesn’t make my blood any more unique or different than yours.” Sairek said before sighing. “Honestly, it’s a flawed system…”
Cyial looked away from him for a moment, seeming to be thinking deeply once again, albeit more nervously this time.
“...Either way, the point is that I’m just… me. Prince or not. Personally, I hate it… but if I’m stuck with the title, then I’m damn well going to use it if they’re not going to let us in for… whatever reason. But if we’re going to reach there by tomorrow afternoon, then I guess we should start going now, shouldn’t we?” Sairek suggested.
Cyial turned to look back at him. “W-Well… if you insist… I know of a little bit of a shortcut to the Inn from here. It will still take us until night to get there at this point, but it shouldn’t be too dark before we get there if we hurry…”
“Cool, I like shortcuts.” Nayleen said, pushing herself to stand up. “You can keep the waterskin in that jewel of yours, Sairek.” She said to him, moving to walk back towards the road.
Sairek stood himself up as well, once again testing his back and pleased when it felt normal. “Do you want to lead the way and show us, Cyial?” Sairek offered while he put the waterskin away like Nayleen said.
“S-Sure… it’s just a little bit ahead, an alternate pathway that cuts around some of the mountains and valleys.” He explained, stepping forwards and walking past Nayleen. He still had held that book of his the entire time within his arms, almost like it was a beloved stuffed animal companion and he was even younger than he already looked.
Nayleen and Sairek began to follow behind him just a short distance away, the newly formed trio walking in silence for a couple moments before Nayleen broke it, trying to make some more conversation. “Sooo, what do you do in the monastery? I’m quite curious how the life of an acolyte is.” Nayleen asked.
The smaller boy glanced back behind himself at her with his red eyes. “I… don’t really know what the life of a normal acolyte is like. I’m a bit of a special case when it comes to the monastery, but… I suppose what I do at least occasionally is run these errands for ethereal and then make more refined medicine out of the flasks I bring back to treat guests at the monastery.”
“Ah, so it’s sort of like a church of Yggdrasil and a hospital at the same time?” Nayleen asked. "...Wait, you go out here to that cave? All by yourself? And if you make medicine, does that make you kind of like some doctor?"
"N-Nayleen... one question at a time..." Sairek cautioned her in a mutter.
“Well, the area around here is pretty safe. Well… it was safe, until that slime came along…” Cyial grumbled. "Not that slimes are very dangerous, but the monastery doesn't like to risk the safety of acolytes like that for no reason..."
“If the slime was there for weeks, then it sounds like someone isn’t doing their job properly.” Sairek frowned. “It sounds like I may have to go and fix that.”
“N-No, that’s alright. You guys got rid of the slime, so it’s fine now… I don’t wish to be a burden...” Cyial pleaded.
Sairek frowned at that, but said nothing. They walked for a few more minutes in silence before he glanced back to Cyial. “So… if you don’t mind me asking, what has been the cause for the lack of shipments from Lamen to Marid?”
Cyial looked back at Sairek for a brief glance then looked ahead. “I’m sorry… I guess I haven’t been doing my job well enough…” He murmured.
“H-Hey, that’s not what I meant…” Sairek replied. “You can’t be the only one who gathers all of the ethereal for the monastery and Marid both... are you?”
There was a brief moment of silence before Cyial spoke again. “...Sorry…”
“What the—How much of the stuff are you carrying then?” Nayleen asked.
“Well… I’m not the only one, but I’m half of it.” Cyial replied. “But because I have been struggling with that slime, what was meant for Marid had to be used for the monastery instead. There was another influx of monsters again recently. I think that slime was from the last influx. So of course some of the knights in Lamen have incurred some injuries sweeping them out and some other monsters that appeared and so… yeah.” Cyial explained.
“It’s fine. I was just curious. It’s not like I’m going back to Marid any time soon, anyway.” Sairek said.
“You’re not…? Then why are you coming to Lamen if not to retrieve the shipment?”
“Just exploring. Nayleen and I are going to see Yggdrasil together.” Sairek said nonchalantly.
“What? Yggdrasil? Why would you two want to travel all the way out there?” Cyial asked in a raised voice, his head and body twisting to look at both of them more directly than he had been before.
“It’s uh…” Sairek began.
“...Complicated.” Nayleen finished.
Sairek nodded. “Well, one of the reasons is because I’m just curious to see it though, of course. I guess you could say Nayleen is my official-yet-unofficial-guide-and-bodyguard to get there.”
“...Is the other reason because of your mother?” Cyial asked after a moment’s hesitation.
“Well, he figured that out fast.” Nayleen glanced at Sairek.
Sairek winced slightly but shrugged. “Yes, because of my mother.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to intrude like that…” Cyial apologized. “But… when you get to Lamen, you should go visit her grave. She rests in the monastery after all. I can take you myself to see her…!”
“I… would like that very much… thank you.” Sairek said, his voice starting to get a little hoarse.
“Oh, over there.” Cyial let out abruptly, shifting the direction he was walking to go off the path. “The shortcut is this way.”
They wandered off of the trail for a couple of minutes, heading towards a valley cliff and going around it from one side to the other before going into an area that looked like the bottom of a ravine almost.
“It’s not as comfortable as walking along the road but this takes us straight through this cliff face instead of the path which kind of goes off to the west and then north to wrap around it. There’s a few big rocks you kind of need to climb over though, but it should save an hour or two.” Cyial explained.
“Whoo! A little bit of mountain climbing sounds fun!” Nayleen cheered.
“Yeah… totally… woohoo.” Sairek replied, his voice dripping with sarcasm. Long distance running was hard enough with his clothes. Long distance climbing over bundles of rocks was a can of worms he was not looking forward to opening. The wall had been bad enough. Of course, Nayleen being eager as she always was, moved herself on ahead, leading them. Cyial and Sairek began to follow behind her.
“Um… by the way…” Cyial started once Nayleen had marched on ahead out of earshot from his whispering.
“...Yes?” Sairek asked, using the same hushed tone.
“Um… if you are going to Yggdrasil, perhaps you should talk to Father Abbot, then.” Cyial suggested.
“Father Abbot…?” Sairek repeated. “Um, is he the one who runs the monastery or something?”
“Ah, sorry, yes. He takes care of me. He might know something about Yggdrasil… about your mother, I mean, maybe. The monastery worships Yggdrasil after all. And well, besides that, if the ethereal not getting to Marid is a concern, you would want to talk to him anyway.”
“Alright, I’ll do that then. Thanks.”
Cyial faintly smiled just briefly before jogging forward to catch up to Nayleen. Sairek followed behind him, still walking, watching as the first big boulder they came across that they had to climb over blocked their path. Nayleen had already managed to climb up on top of it and was sitting comfortably, watching the two of them up above. Cyial almost comically jumped up to place his book on top of it, and kicked and scraped his boots against the rock to climb up it. He could have done it himself, but Nayleen moved to help pull him up with ease.
“Woo, you're almost as light as a feather, Cyial! Now watch how hard it will be for me to do with Sairek…” Nayleen frowned, glaring at him down below.
Sairek sighed and glared his eyes up at her in return. “...Is this going to be a problem with you the entire way there…?” He asked.
“Uhh… how many rocks like these are there Cyial?” Nayleen asked, turning to look at the smaller boy beside her.
“Um… six… or seven, maybe? I never really counted them. Why?” Cyial asked.
“Oh dear.” Nayleen let out, looking back to Sairek, giving him a cruel smile.
“...Oh dear indeed.” Sairek replied flatly.
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