Glitch

Seven! Castle As Kids

"I can't track her. Wherever she is, I can't tell where on the map." Kyle says after unsuccessfully pinpointing Peyton's location.

It has been several hourglass turns since Peyton got taken away from us. I've cried during the time, wiped my tears away, broken into fresh ones, wiped those ones away again.

"Would you stop crying?" Black hood demands, his serene grey eyes staring into my darkened obsidian hazel ones. "It doesn't make much difference if you cry the entire time she is away and probably getting tortured. That's just pathetic."

"What did you say?" Kyle butts in, his melancholy pale green eyes challenging Black hood. His mannerism tells me he'll draw his sword out any moment from now. He shouldn't fight for no just reason especially with a high profile fugitive.

"No he's right. All this crying is pointless." I whisper softly but I take it that they can both hear me. They sit opposite me and face the other direction, avoiding each other's gaze. "You're acting like children."

"This whole thing even happened because we were looking for you in the first place! Why don't you start using that bow and arrow of yours to rescue her?!" Kyle bursts suddenly. I think he has been holding it in for a while. He doesn't seem to like the hood guy very much. Correction, they don't like each other.

"Hey, I saved your life with this," he puts the bow forward. "And what happens to your teammate isn't my responsibility. It's due to your own incompetence, if anyone should take account for what happens to one of you then it's either one of you!!" Now he's looking at me and Kyle with fiery eyes. He's sparking and snapping so much that I'm scared to open my mouth... especially because there's a tint of truth in it.

"Tch," Kyle grits his teeth. He's as speechless as me. No doubt, Black hood speaks the truth. Kyle storms off hissing and rambling, with clenched fists, the other fist clutching the hem of his sword. He won't be back in a while, I can tell that much.

The sun is setting already. Hues of orange and pink scatter in the horizon and the crescent moon shines its brightest. I'm alone with Black hood and I've had enough of this awkward silence and tension between us. It's thick enough to be cut with a knife. I wander through the forest and stumble upon a silhouette. It's tall and manly, it kind of looks like Black hood from behind but when it turns, Kyle's damp face comes into dimmed light.

The orchestra of birdsong I could hear from them suddenly stopped. By now the sun is completely done for the day. The evening stars peep down at us like silver asters, glinting and shimmering. I sit by him with our backs against a lightning blasted tree trunk and watch the thin streaks of sunlight fade away. Coils of vaporous mist enwraps the shaggy heads of the oak trees. Boulders colonized the edges of the waterfall, buffed with pillows of moss. They cause a rocky gurgling as water meets stone, a swish, a clunk, a swell and a clop.

"Remember when we used to play Castle as kids?" I start the conversation.

Kyle replies with a subtle nod of the head but it does not satisfy me so I push on. "Those used to be the best days of our life. Never did I think one of us would become an actual damsel in distress. But it's happening now and I'm just sitting around because there's nothing I can do..." I croak. My voice lodges in my throat. Talking out loud now, I realise how pathetic I sound. At this rate, I won't be able to kill a fly.

"I'm equally responsible too. If only I wasn't so slow, I would have seen the bandits sneak up on us and brought my sword out in time." He faces the darker side of the forest. I can no longer see his damp face that keeps leaking by the cycles. He blames himself as much as I do.

A voice coughs behind us. "I hate to break up this moment you guys are having right now but the best time to sneak attacks on bandits like those guys is at night." Black hood stands behind us creepily, hiding a sheepish smile.