“Argh!”
Sairek felt his left foot slipping and he only just managed to shift his and Varhi’s weight to prevent himself from tumbling over. Though while he did manage to succeed in that, he instead began skidding down about half a foot down the path. He would have thought climbing down would have been easier, but when he was carrying another boy on his back who didn’t have enough strength to hold on himself, it was exceptionally hard. It’s not like any of them were wearing the proper footwear or clothes for this, either.
“Easy, Sairek. Just keep it up for a couple more minutes, we’re almost at the base now.” Nayleen reassured him. "It should start smoothing out into more gentle slopes soon."
It was not just the steep decline and Varhi’s weight that was making this descent excruciating for Sairek. During their absence within Karvadean, the past couple of days on this side of the continent apparently had been blanketed in a moderate film of powdery snow. It wasn’t everywhere, but it was certainly in patches here and there and it was getting more plentiful and colder the further down the mountain they went traveling northwards. Sairek would have thought it would have gotten warmer as they descended, but the night air was getting pretty chilly now and it was getting frigid enough that he could see clouds of steam exhaling from everyone's labored breaths.
At least he wasn't feeling cold himself, but that was because his body was absolutely screaming at him from all of the exertion. At this point, he had been aching for so long he was almost numb to it in a way. He wondered if this was how Varhi managed it, but Sairek knew he wouldn’t have the willpower to resist for days, let alone another hour. Thankfully, he was spurred on with the knowledge that he knew he could stop carrying Varhi soon; that they would finally be out of this; that they would be able to start resting back up. If they could just hold on for a little bit longer...
“Do you need a break?” Cyial asked him, concern edged in his voice.
“I...I’m okay… I can do it… a little longer...” Sairek wheezed as he glanced down and looked at his jewel, noting by now that it was a ruby red, gradually becoming dimmer at this point. It wouldn’t last much longer, but it would probably last longer than Varhi would at this rate. They were so close... He could do this. He must do this.
The injured boy had once again fallen silent and slack again and was barely making a sound. His skin color had started to become more pale, though he was still breathing, it was becoming more faint, more shallow. Remembering these facts caused Sairek to grunt in effort as he pushed himself up and forced his legs to just walk and his arms and back to continue to carry the burden of Varhi’s weight. Cyial, when he could afford to, moved behind him to help. It wasn’t much, but the demon was capable of at least alleviating a few pounds of weight from Varhi by lifting him up slightly and giving him more leverage when he could, while Nayleen guided them both.
“Stop. We have a problem.” Nayleen groaned towards them in an order, which the two boys did. She paused, crouching down at the edge in front of them. “This is a bit of a drop down. We could climb it by ourselves no problem, but not like this with Varhi. It’s about a dozen feet of straight vertical drop.” She glanced to her right and then to her left. "No easy way around it. Long cliff. I can't see another way in this darkness."
Cyial walked over behind her, peering down the cliff over her shoulder, then mimicked her head gesture of panning right, then left. "...No, there is no alternative. There's sort of one if we back track up, then walk around, but we'd be having to walk sideways on a steep decline... Quite a ways back, hardly worth it."
“Dammit… we’re so close…!” Sairek growled in frustration. Why was this kind of obstacle in the way when they were so close to the end?!
Nayleen looked over her shoulder at the Incubus. “Cyial, I’m going to try to climb my way down. Do you think you can manage to slowly lift Varhi down with your little shield trick?”
“I… I can try… but that’s pretty dangerous.” Cyial said. "His weight might drag me along, so..."
“I’ll hang on to you, don’t worry.” Sairek said.
“Mmm... Well, alright… I guess we don’t have much choice at this point, anyway…” Cyial murmured.
“Okay, get Varhi ready, I’m working my way down.” Nayleen said as she sat down on the ledge and turned her body so her knees were against the edge of the cliff, then she began slowly working her way down.
“Shenkalin.” Cyial chanted, a weariness in his voice as he clapped his hands together. Cyial had cast that spell so many times today and done a lot of physical labor on top of that. He was utterly exhausted and thus, when the shields didn’t appear like all of the other times, he could only blink. "Shenkalin...!" He tried again with more force in his voice, clapping his hands together harder.
...Nothing.
"...Fuck." Cyial allowed himself to swear venomously in frustration, catching Sairek completely off guard. A pit formed in his stomach. He knew it had to be bad to be hearing Cyial use such language. Cyial rarely cursed, and the use of such vocabulary was completely foreign.
"Stop, Nayleen... We have another problem." Cyial sighed, his voice a tone of being resigned and weary.
“What, what’s wrong?” Nayleen’s voice asked from below. Her head peeped back out over the ledge, already on her way up hearing Cyial swearing. "It's not like you to use such language."
The demon shook his head solemnly. “I’m tapped out. The spell's not working…” Cyial continued to growl and squeezed his eyes shut in disappointment. “I’m sorry...”
Nayleen began working her way back up. “Can’t you do that meditation thing?”
“...Meditate with what? All that’s out here is rock and snow.” Cyial said, an edge of frustration still in his voice, but it was mostly a tone of disappointment now. “Besides, both Varhi and Sairek don’t have the time for that, and even more, I’m a demon, so that just doesn’t work for me.”
“We're all out of ethereal at this point too. We’re going to need another plan... and we need to come up with a solution quick.” Sairek stressed, trying to think desperately as he positioned Varhi and sat down. “It’s not far… there’s got to be another way we can—wait, I think I may have just gotten an idea,” he paused, setting Varhi on the ground carefully, and then began to dig through the other boy’s satchel. After a moment, he pulled out the remaining length of rope they had left between the four of them. “We could use this. We can tie him to one of us for more leverage and use the remainder to help support our climb down with the added weight.”
“We don’t have enough rope to tie him together and use it to work out way down.” Nayleen reminded him. “We used most of our rope both to get into Karvadean and to scale around that one cliff, remember? What we have there is all we have left from what we could manage to salvage.”
“So just tying him to one of us and scaling down manually will have to do…” Cyial sighed. "It's not ideal, it's going to put a lot of exertion on whoever is climbing down, but it might just have to do."
“Let me then, I’m the climbing expert and both the tallest and lightest, so it’ll be easiest for me.” Nayleen volunteered. "Also I'm not stranger to scaling cliffs like this."
“But—” Sairek began to protest.
“Sairek, I don’t know what your deal is, but this is not the time for your pride or ego to get in the way of rational thinking. For Varhi’s sake, please use common sense.” Nayleen scolded him. “Look, both you and Cyial are absolutely exhausted both physically and mentally. Cyial specifically is literally spent.”
Sairek bit his bottom lip. “I’m… I’m sorry… I just feel like it’s my responsibility…”
“Did you not already tell Varhi that we’re a team the first day we came here?” Nayleen asked.
“Yes, I did...”
“So let’s act like a team! You and Cyial did your part, now comes mine. Come on, help tie him to me.”
Sairek accepted what she was getting at. He needn't shoulder any burden alone; at least not right now in the current situation. He pushed himself up from the ground and handed over the rope to Cyial before moving to pick up a limp Varhi off the ground with a grunt and slowly moving to drape him over Nayleen who lay crouched down to give Sairek an easier time. Once Varhi was placed and Sairek was holding him steady, Cyial began tying the rope around both Nayleen and the unconscious boy around their mid sections, finishing off with a very generous and tight knot at both ends at Varhi’s back. “That will have to do.” Cyial breathed out, stepping off to the side.
Nayleen slowly stood up and tested it and smirked. “Hey, it’s almost kind of like he's a backpack. Yeah, this isn't too bad. I think it will work as long as he doesn't squirm or something.”
“I’m glad you’re confident, because I’m done…” Cyial wheezed. “I’m starting to feel light headed…”
“I guess we’re not going to use the idea I had… I was going to suggest we use the shields and just drag him the rest of the way.” Sairek sighed. "I know you were already pretty spent though Cyial, that's why I stopped mentioning it. I'm sorry."
“No need to be sorry, Sairek… I felt tired but even my own spell working has caught me off guard." Cyial frowned, then turned around some. "Go ahead Nayleen… I’ll take a couple moments to rest…” The demon mumbled, moving to sit himself down and lean against a rocky outcrop, grunting in an exhausted tone as he set his weight down.
“Sairek, I’ll need help for the initial bit.” Nayleen said, moving towards the edge. Sairek moved over and grabbed her hands for leverage and leaned himself back some to give her support as she slowly stepped over and knelt down, Sairek moved himself down with her. Slowly she pulled back one hand and grabbed the ledge and moved a bit lower, then relinquished Sairek’s other hand to grab the ledge again. “Thanks. Will call out to you guys when I've made it down.” She said, and began a very slow, careful descent down.
Sairek pulled himself back away from the edge and moved to sit next to Cyial, letting out a winded exhale himself. Both Sairek and Cyial looked at each other, studying each other’s state. Both had a coat of sweat over their faces and looked utterly tired, but Cyial continued to look fairly pale.
“I bet this isn’t the kind of physical workout Fuyiki was thinking of that we’d be doing, wasn’t it…?” Cyial chuckled weakly.
“No… I don’t think so.” Sairek smiled a little.
The two sat, looking at each other for a little longer in silence before Sairek moved first and wrapped his arms around Cyial in a hug, although the drain the day had done to his stamina made it pretty weak. Regardless, Cyial moved to return the gesture, hugging Sairek back where they both stayed for a moment more in silence before Cyial took the initiative this time. “We’re almost out, Sairek. Hang in there…”
“Yeah… I know… I should be saying that to you, really.” Sairek whispered, his voice came out a little hoarse. “We’ve made it through the worst of it at least—”
“AH–! DAMMIT!”
Nayleens sudden exclamation echo down below in the evening air. It jerked both boys back from their embrace and in sync, they scrambled to crawl through the snow from where they were sitting and moved over to glance down over the ledge. “Nayleen–!?” Both boys exclaimed in unison.
Sairek was expecting the worst, but he saw Nayleen had reached the bottom and was standing. She was hunched over with Varhi still on her back, with her own back facing them; at least for a moment. When she turned around, Sairek saw the problem. She was holding her left hand, and there was blood dripping off of her fingers that weren't protected by her gloves “What happened!?” Sairek yelled down.
“The rock gave away the last couple of feet, and because I didn’t want to drop and accidentally fall on Varhi or have us tumble down the rest of the mountain, I dragged my hand down. Those rocks are sharp! I only have fingerless gloves unlike you guys, so my fingers got cut badly.” She explained. “Damn that hurts…!” She hissed more to herself than them as she looked down. “L-Look, I’ll be okay! I’ll nurse this while you guys make your way down. I've got my own bandages just in case. It'll be okay!”
Sairek groaned out loud in frustration. "Son of a bitch... Me and my big damn mouth...!" He cursed, lowering his head as a wave of hopelessness washed over him.
At least it could have been much worse, he knew that; but stuff like this happening was not something they could afford to just keep happening. Little by little, they were being chipped down to fumes. If this kept up they would collapse just at the brink of finally being safe. Climbing down cliffs like these at night was stupid and dangerous, but Varhi couldn’t afford the time and it wasn’t safe out here still...
“You can go first… I still need a minute…” Cyial said.
“...Are you sure that’s all you need? I hate to keep hammering it in, but you look awful, Cyial…” Sairek mumbled.
Cyial despite his exhaustion, made a face at Sairek of wounded pride. “Well, you don’t look so good yourself, either,” he shot back dryly, then stuck his tongue out at Sairek in an attempt to try to ease some of the tension from the situation. “Besides, knowing you, it's going to take you like, five minutes to get down anyway.”
Despite the situation, Sairek couldn't help but smirk in amusement at that.. “Oh, so that’s how it is, huh? I’ll see you in 'five minutes', then.” He scoffed in mock emotional hurt, maneuvering himself to the edge of the cliff as he placed his staff down at the ledge, then paused...
...For twenty seconds.
“...Yggdrasil give me strength...” He heard Cyial lament with a sigh. "I wasn't being serious about you taking five minutes, but it will if you keep stalling."
“Q-Quiet, you…!” Sairek sniffed, moving himself to turn around as he dipped one leg over the edge. Gripping the edge with both hands, he lowered his other leg even lower, making sure the rock he was trying to put his weight on could hold his weight by putting a little force on it before he put the rest of his weight down—
“Ugah!"
"S-Sairek!" Cyial shouted, diving over to try and catch him, but it was too late.
The rock underneath Sairek's left foot broke and he lurched downwards, though still gripping the edge, it was a sort of slow fall that gave him enough time to mentally prepare himself. Instead of attempting to hang on, Sairek instead braced himself as much as he could and ultimately allowed himself to slowly slide the rest of his body off that was above the ledge to slow the fall as much as possible and brace his legs for the impact. It wasn't much, but it was slower than simply free falling.
"I-I'm okay!!" He called up to Cyial as he painfully slid down. However, the ground was slanted, so when his legs fell eight feet or so after his hands lost their grip from the edge, he lost his balance and began to tumble down the slope.
Tumbling down a mountain at night when visibility was low was extremely dangerous, and Sairek knew this, however, as much as he tried to stop his momentum, he could only slow it down a little, until he eventually crashed his side into a a protruding boulder, causing him to let out a quick bark in pain. He was about to rebound off of it and keep going, but he managed to throw his hands out in desperation onto some dried branches around the rock, though his hands slipped from them—or he pulled them out from where they were rooted, he wasn’t sure which—it served enough to halt his momentum and he slid only a little further down on his back before coming to a rest.
“Sweet Lands, are you okay!?” Nayleen shrieked.
“Ugh… I-I’m fine…” he grumbled. His left shoulder ached a little from slamming into the rock, but... well, that’s what the clothes he wore were for. He glanced back up the cliff he’d just plummeted from, his stomach doing a small flip-flop. How he managed to only bruise himself a little from such a nasty fall was a miracle. “Well, uh… it’s your turn…!” He called up to Cyial, trying to nonchalantly dust snow off of his clothes.
Cyial’s worried look transformed into a dull one. “Hopefully I can get down a little more gracefully than you... Honestly I was hoping you'd take longer so I could rest longer.”
"You mocked me taking five minutes, so I uh, had to show you I meant business." Sairek shot back unconvincingly.
"Yeah, sure. Whatever you say, Sairek." the Prince barely heard the demon shoot back as he reached over, grabbing Sairek’s staff and wrapping his tail around it tightly. Slowly, he inched himself over the edge and began working his way down. Sairek pushed himself back up onto his feet and stepped back up the incline to stand beside Nayleen.
"Are you sure you're okay? That looked like quite the nasty spill." Nayleen questioned him.
"Somehow, it looked worse than it actually was, though definitely no less scary. Thankfully I do have gloves that cover the entire hand and the enchantments cushioned most of that impact." Sairek reassured her. "If I had hit my head on that rock instead of my shoulder though... it would have been a lot different. That was really close... "
"Do your... enchantments also protect your head? Or only what's covered...?" Nayleen pressed.
"Well, the clothing enchantments only protect what's covered. The jewel protects all of me, so my head is only covered by one layer; but going head first into a rock like that would definitely have done something really bad... Especially when it's this low on ethereal." Sairek murmured, his legs shook a little as the adrenaline from the scare faded into realization. "I... would definitely not be up right now... if I had just been a few more inches to the left..."
Nayleen sucked a breath in through her teeth as she tore off linen around her fingers; leaving both her hands in a state of being half mummified, but the bandages were thin, allowing some dexterity still with her hands. "Man... This climb is too dangerous. We should have tried to find another way around it. At least a better spot to climb down than here." Nayleen sighed, looking back up as Cyial positioned himself and started taking his first careful movements down the cliff.
"You know we would have if that was an option, Nayleen. This area is still too dangerous. The further away we get, the better. Not to mention the whole potentially trespassing thing. And you know as much as I do that Varhi doesn't have that kind of time. We need to get to the boat and get ethereal for all of us, pronto."
Sairek glanced back to Cyial, realizing he was taking a while. His boyfriend was a little less than half way down. Cyial had paused, his breathing had started to become labored all of a sudden, more than he had been doing lately. Sairek’s expression changed into concern. “...C-Cyial? Cyial, are you alright?!” He called up to him, stepping away from Nayleen and already moving forward with a protective instinct..
The demon didn’t respond for a moment, blinking, as if confused where he was or just remembering what he was doing, then his expression shifted from confusion to horrific realization over his face. He slowly turned to look down at the remaining distance, and at Sairek and Nayleen behind his left arm. “M-My body, is... I-I’m… I’m passing… out… I’m about to pass out...” Cyial barely managed to say, his words almost panicked, but came out strangely calm at the same time. “I can’t hold on…I, I... getting faint... S-Sairek...”
Sairek immediately pushed his tired body the rest of the distance to meet up with Cyial as the incubus boy began to loosen the grip he had on the cliff and he soon began to fall backwards limply. Sairek rushed up faster and held his arms out just in time to catch Cyial as he fell, though the boy only fell about seven feet or so, Sairek still staggered and collapsed to the ground heavily with a grunt with the incubus in his arms, but ultimately he saved Cyial from tumbling down even worse than he had himself. Cyial’s grip on the staff with his tail loosened and went completely slack as he fainted. The staff began to roll down the hillside, though Nayleen staggered herself as quick as she could with Varhi still strapped on her back over to intercept it and catch it under her foot.
“Cyial…? Cyial!” Sairek called out in grave concern, gently shaking the robed boy in his arms to try and stir him.
Cyial’s eyes fluttered closed and the rest of his limbs went limp on the Prince's hold.He was silent for a pregnant moment before he slowly opened his eyes again halfway with a strangled grunt, garnet irises glowing in the night air as he panted for breath. “Nnmm… I'm... s-sorry... “ he mumbled faintly, speech slurred.
“Nayleen—What happened to him…?!” Sairek demanded her, pushing himself up while still holding Cyial closely within his arms.
“I think he’s just exhausted—we all are. Cyial has stayed up for the past two days keeping watch for us in Karvadean earlier, too. We’re pushed to our limit, Sairek… even I’m feeling a bit faint now if I'm being honest…” Nayleen huffed. “We need to get out of here. If we all start passing out here, we’re done for. We need to get to that boat already...”
Sairek clenched his teeth. His dearest friends were literally collapsing all around him and they were the ones who had followed him here because they cared about him. Sairek shifted Cyial’s position and the demon was lucid enough to help out as best as he could, helping adjust and maneuver himself onto Sairek’s back just like he had for Varhi, though Cyial was smaller, lighter and capable of holding onto Sairek more than Varhi could. “Well, we’re still up Nayleen. What’s our move?” Sairek asked Nayleen.
“The plan hasn’t changed. It’s still our best bet. Besides, you're right; the longer we stay in Masirean, the more trouble we’re in. If anyone spots us camping in the middle of nowhere, we’re screwed. Don’t forget we’re still trespassing with the thinnest of excuses.”
“As if I could forget that…” Sairek grumbled, then he happened to glance up and his face fell. “Oh, just great…”
What once was a clear night sky was becoming fairly overcast now. It was light, but there were tiny snowflakes beginning to gently flutter downwards. Nayleen looked up and frowned. “It’s about to storm again… and if you remember how strong the last one was when we were in Ceareste… We’ve still got time though. Hopefully we’ll be out of it before it starts getting too bad… even at the pace we’re going.”
“Us hoping hasn’t been going well so far tonight...” Sairek grumbled, shifting Cyial’s weight a little as he bent down and collected his staff, then held it out to Nayleen. "Here, I can't carry it with Cyial but you can use it as a normal stick to balance your weights on the way down."
"Feels weird using the staff for that, but this is the point we've been pushed to..." Nayleen sighed regrettably as she took it from him.
Ten minutes later, the ground was starting to flatten out, but the snow they were beginning to trudge through was beginning to increase, fatiguing them down even more. Though it was only a couple inches deep, with how much weight they were carrying on each of their backs, even having to push their feet through a couple inches of snow was becoming taxing on them. And whenever a cloud passed over the moon, it became so incredibly dark, with no light to guide them, they were practically stumbling dangerously in the dark in those moments until; the clouds passed. The sky was growing more overcast; the blindness of the night becoming increasingly more frequent. Even Cyial had to rise his head from Sairek's shoulder, trying to guide the both of them verbally since he was the only one who could see.
“We’re… We’re almost there…” Nayleen huffed, glancing up, her face covered in a cold sweat. They were almost at the mountain cliff side that they had parked behind. They just had to hug it, walk around it and then they’d be at the rendezvous point. "I'm starting to vaguely remember the landscape here when we hiked to Osha."
By now the snow which once was light had become quite heavy, and the wind was picking up, the chill biting into all of them when it blew, even Sairek was beginning to feel his vulnerable ears beginning to burn with the cold. “Twenty… more minutes you think…?” Sairek grunted in effort.
“Maybe less… but yeah… maybe being generous is smart at this point… twenty minutes… that’s um… reasonable right…?” Nayleen wheezed. “Damn… We're starting to go past midnight… This is the Pits—Oh wait…” She paused. “I guess I shouldn’t use that term anymore…”
“Well.. it’s befitting… because we’re still kind of here for now…” Sairek chuckled weakly. “I’m going to pass out... on one of those beds in the ship... for an entire week after this…”
Their conversation trailed off there, falling back onto heaving grunts or just heavy breathing, both of them mostly looking down and only slightly ahead of them for the next six minutes until a loud sound up ahead of them that sounded like a horn rang out. They both paused and glanced at each other and Cyial also lifted his head up as well from his half-passed out state. “...Am I hallucinating…?” He asked quietly.
“No, I heard it too.” Nayleen said.
“Not what I heard—what I see…” Cyial corrected. “The water is over there… I think that’s the ship...!”
Another loud horn was heard as if it could hear Cyial. Sairek laughed out loud in relief. “Oh thank you, Jimmy! He must have gotten worried and moved the ship up closer to scan the surrounding shoreline. Come on, let’s go, we’re almost there...!”
Trudging through the snow but now with the end of this nightmare in sight, both Sairek and Nayleen felt a second wind of adrenaline come through as they pushed on through the snow. About three more minutes of walking and they could see the familiar hull of Jimmy’s ship. Cyial, though still weak, climbed down from Sairek, giving him much relief. Cyial was confident he could make the rest of the distance, and Nayleen passed his staff back to him.
“There… There’s a sight for sore eyes…” They heard Varhi mutter weakly over the sound of the engine that was becoming audible as they got closer to it.
“Glad to see you’re still alive and with us.” Sairek said, glancing towards Varhi, then back when he heard what sounded like chains moving and the ramp they had once exited off of was beginning to descend back down in front of them.
“I can’t die yet… I have a reason to live… I just need to figure out what it is…” Varhi whispered and began to chuckle, then winced. “Ow… fuck—that still hurts...”
Nayleen snorted in amusement. The ramp descended down in front of them and they began to climb back up it slowly, until finally they were back on the ship properly, where both Sairek, Cyial and Nayleen in unison collapsed onto their hands and knees where Jimmy ran up to them.
“Shit, are you guys okay–?” He demanded.
“We’re all alive…” Nayleen grumbled. “Have we got a tale to tell you. But Varhi is in bad shape…”
Jimmy untied Varhi from the rope around both he and Nayleen were connected to and pulled Varhi up. “No hugging… I’m too beat up…” Varhi managed to groan. Jimmy froze for a moment, seeming like he had been about to do that and stopped, and instead hauled Varhi over his shoulder while holding him up and steadied the boy with his other arm. “Ow… stoppit…” Varhi droned weakly.
Sairek couldn't even stand on his hands and knees anymore and just lay on his front, breathing heavily. The terrible situation was finally over. His adrenaline fading, leaving him exhausted, worn, wiped out...
“I’m so sorry you three.” Jimmy said, his voice and expression pained.
“Don’t apologize… I did it because I wanted to…” Sairek grumbled, propping himself up onto his elbows. “And besides… we got him out. We're finally safe...”
“I’m so, so sorry guys…” Jimmy continued with a shake of his head.
“Oi, I said stop apologizing—”
“They… They caught me...” Jimmy declared.
... ... ...?
“W...What...?” Sairek whispered, confused. The sound around him seemed to evaporate into an eerie stillness and silence. A shudder ran through him—it wasn't from the cold chill in the air. "J-Jimmy...? Wh...What are you talking about...?"
A sudden slam from the doors to the inside of the ship came as it opened abruptly and Sairek stared ahead with widened eyes. The trio’s faces became pale in realization and horror as they all looked up from laying prone on the deck of the ship. One man stepped out, along with about half a dozen others behind him. All but one were knights and they looked like they were suited up, ready for some kind of battle or resistance at a moment's notice.
Ahead of them in the middle, the one who wasn't a knight instead stood a middle-aged man, wearing a golden crown, which on top of the crown was a jewel very familiar to Sairek. After all, he had just witnessed finding nearly a dozen of them several times its size, and wore his own royal jewel.. Where Sairek’s jewel was diamond shaped, this one was smooth and oval.
The man walked forwards further ahead alone, until his feet stopped only a foot in distance away in front of Sairek’s face, causing the Prince to have to crane his head and neck look up in horror as he lay propped up onto his elbows, staff in his right hand, while the man looked down upon him befittingly.
“Greetings, Son of Aayron and Melina Ceareste. It is good to finally meet you again in the flesh. My, you have certainly grown quite a lot since I’ve last seen you nearly a decade ago! Do you remember me, young man?”
Sairek could only stare upwards, his mouth felt dry, no sound escaping his mouth as he grit his teeth together.
“Hmm, it would seem not, but you certainly recognize who I am nonetheless.” The man hummed. With slow and deliberate movements, he moved to kneel down in front of Sairek as one would to become more level with a toddler to get a closer look at the young lad laying exhausted on the deck of the ship in front of him. His dark brown eyes boring into Sairek’s own emerald green ones intensely..
“Indeed, young Prince of Ceareste... I am Avotash Masirean.”
No comments:
Post a Comment