Corilian cont'd
The Windchester’s healer, a middle aged man with a round
belly and a hyper positive outlook on life named Finn, climbed down the cargo
hold’s ladder. He looked around the room pinching his temples trying to fight
off a headache. “I can feel the tension in here. What were you doing?” He looked at Blayze with a cheeky smile. They had
never seen eye to eye and Blayze struggles to be in his company. His humour,
especially, was lost on her.
He noticed Seth’s quick retreat and cooed raising his
eyebrows, “I see! That’s the good kind of tension.” He bowed to Blayze,
laughing, and walked off the ship empty handed.
Blayze’s foot stomped on the floor as she watched the back
of his head bob away. “What the hell are you talking about?” Blayze called
after him. Finn laughed as he reached the dock, refusing to answer her.
Having witnessed the fight between Seth and Blayze and then
the altercation between Blayze and Finn, Izek boarded the ship again and tried
to shed some light on the situation. “He was alluding to sexual tension.”
“Why would you think that?”
Izek shook his head as he levitated the pile of fruit out
onto the dock. “You can be very oblivious Blayze You might want to think about
letting your human half out once in a while.”
Confused, insulted and bothered Blayze picked up Dax’s
second trunk by herself and slowly followed the wizard off the boat. “You think
I’m oblivious?”
“No,” Izek shoot his head, “I know you are. But that’s not my point.”
Standing on the dock with the wizard, in front of a half
unloaded cargo ship Blayze’s nostrils flared as she tried to hide her
frustration. “Then what is your point?” She forced her voice to stay even.
“Seth’s upset.” Izek said pointedly; he knew this answer
would bother her and he was trying to help, but Blayze had teased him, so he
wasn’t going to make this easy on her.
“I know that!” She huffed. Her cheeks went pink in frustration.
In that moment she looked more human than normal; colourful and emotional. “But
he wouldn’t tell me why.”
“Yes he did. You just didn’t understand him.” Izek laughed
to himself.
Unaware that Izek was making their conversation difficult on
purpose, Blayze wished that the people around her would stop speaking in
riddles. She blinked blankly at Izek
until he continued with a sigh. “Do you fear death?”
Again she felt confused. Why
would he ask such a stupid question?
“Do you?” He repeated.
“Of course not!” She practically scoffed at the question.
“Well, Seth does.”
It wasn’t funny anymore. The stare Izek got from Blayze was
as blank as ever. The wizard leaned
against one of the carts lining the dock and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Have
you two ever talked about his
beliefs?”
“No.” She admitted. “Does he actually fear death?” She
pondered the idea aloud.
“You are guided by the Raven Queen. Seth is not. It is only
natural that he doesn’t understand why you don’t fear death like he does.”
“That’s ridiculous.” She started to refute, but Izek
interrupted her thought with a raised hand.
“It is not ridiculous if you believe as he does.” He raised
a single eyebrow and looked down at her like she was a child learning a lesson.
“Now go speak to him.” Blayze looked from the half full cargo hold to the end
of the pier when she had seen Seth disappear. She hissed under her breath.
“Just go.” Izek had his fill of drama for the day and was
tired of her. “I’ll finish unloading. Just buy me a drink later.”
The moment he had said he would finish unloading the ship
Blayze had run off in search of Seth. She ran passed the other ships in the
harbour, along the dock, on to the shore wondering where Seth might be sulking.
This is Nain. Nain is small. Where would
he go on Nain? She wondered. Seth liked trees, they reminded him of the Standing
Lands far beneath them, but Nain was small and only held small clumps of young
trees. It had been deforested by its inhabitants years ago and now relied on
ships like the Windchester for the island’s supply of lumber and tree grown
fruit; there were no forests for him here.
Seth missed the Standing Lands, he never got the same enjoyment
that Blayze feels when she looks out into the expanse of sky and sees the
distant silhouette of another floating continent looming in the distance. So,
if he couldn’t be surrounded by trees, he would be inland as far as possible,
and likely seeking refuge in a library.
Brushing her long dark curls away from her face Blayze approached
a nearby couple walking arm in arm asking how she could get to the continent’s
largest library. The couple laughed politely and directed Blayze to Nain’s only library.
The directions were easy to follow and brought her quickly
to the front door of what looked like a brick shop with the word Library painted in blue on the small
window. Blayze hesitated with her hand on the cold brass door knob wondering
what she would say when she found Seth. She didn’t have long to wonder. The
door knob turned in her hand and the door opened away from her. She looked up
to see Seth coming out of the building.
“What are you doing here?” He asked. He didn’t sound upset,
simply curious. He was standing in the doorway, absentmindedly flipping through
the pages of an old book. Seth wasn’t a scholar like his parents, but he had
always seemed comforted and calmed by
the presence of old books. He had beamed with pride when he showed off the
small collection of books he kept in his trunk on the Windchester.
“I was looking for you.”
Seth closed the library door behind him. “And?”
“And you were upset and I still don’t understand why.”
Seth took a seat on the curb of the road and motioned for
Blayze to join him. “I’m upset because you act recklessly. You’re impulsive and
act without thinking of the consequences of your actions. I’m not surprised,”
he sighed, “you always have been, I just always hoped you would grow out of it.”
Blayze listened intently and stayed quiet as Seth started
flipping through his book again. “The dangers out here are real.”
“The dangers were just as real back home.”
“You still don’t get it. Jumping ship to ship or standing
atop the mainsail. You think because you’re half-elf that you’re invincible,
but you aren’t. Accidents happen and you could get yourself killed. Today you
nearly fell off the ship. If I hadn’t caught you, you would have died, and wouldn’t
be here right now.” His cheeks were red but his fingers were white around the
spine of the book in his lap.
“That’s your problem? That I almost died?”
“Blaezandra please!” Seth shouted. Blayze’s lips pursed
together and her nostrils flared again at the sound of her given name. She
looked furious, but when she spoke her voice was surprisingly soft.
“I have no control over when I die. No one does. It is a
fact of nature that everything must die, I know this and so do you. So why live
in fear? One day the Raven Queen will mark me for death and I will die. That’s
the truth of it.”
“So you aren’t scared of dying?”
Blayze shook her head calmly. She still looked angry, but
she moved slowly and deliberately. “No.”
“What if I died tomorrow?”
His question caught her off-guard and she felt a tightness
stretch across her chest and heat rise up her spine. She had never considered
that the Raven Queen might take Seth first. She felt a prickling sensation in
the corner of her eyes and stood up quickly. She turned her back on Seth embarrassed;
it wasn’t often she felt embarrassed and she hated the feeling.
“I know you aren’t afraid of when you’ll die, but I am.
Today I thought it was that day. I didn’t know if I was going to get to you in
time. It was terrifying.”
“Should I transfer to another ship?” Just as quickly as snapping
fingers together Blayze’s emotions were replaced by her logical side.
“What?” Seth shouted. "Why do you want to transfer ships?"
***
That's it for today. More to come but I've had a long day and my bed is calling.
Comments and critiques welcome :)
(I promise not to read them while tired and grumpy)
-Brandolyn
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