The Followers Of The Prophecy

Until Halivaara

The last time I looked at Everlasting Clock before magical thunder stomped into the dungeons was seven thirty five in the morning. Venus's roots moved similar to tentacles, but much more coarse and hard. Yet, so elegant. Taller than the beasts that accompanied her, she kept her chin up high and her composure intact. Behavior mimicked from her childhood.

Venus once told me she was the perfect daughter, and she hated it. The way she and her siblings ate, dressed, talked, travelled and carried themselves had to be specific to their culture. She was told she represented it, despite those peasants who disrespected it. Though through the years she tried to change, her elegance always remained.

Elegant, but never quiet. Her roots rumbled down the stairs, grasping each step with brute force. The guards, instead of dumping her in the cell next to mine, let her go in at her own will. Venus's face sent shivers through my arms. Pure disgust and anger stamped on hard bark. Carved like it would stay like that forever, and she disappeared behind the walls that divided the cells. Venus planted herself in the ground by breaking the stone underneath her with her roots. Without an introduction, she told us about her night in a monotone voice. She sounded unreal, changed. A part of me thought that she told us only a part of her night. She said she almost got beat by townsfolk for scaring their children. A walking tree! They had screamed. The ground had opened up below her several times. If not for her great rooting skills, the ground would have eaten her, she said. Who knows what part of the underworld she had been exposed to. Finally, the murder room. She went face to face with chainsaws and herbicides. The equipment was readied, and the torture master turned on the chainsaw with a roar. A couple of her leaves flew off as she felt the air of the chains in her face. The torture master stopped the chainsaw upon receiving news that the prince needed permission. She let Venus go with two guards. The same guards opened Phaedra's cell. She was out for questioning. I told her to tell the truth.

"Venus I get you had a rough time, but you left on your own will," I said, less quiet than usual, trying to defend myself, and justify all her suffering.

"Very bold statement, friend," Venus said calmly, in a state of mind that didn't even sound worldly. She called me her friend on purpose. A cruel reminder that she helped me through my worst times in college. Acting like I wasn't there for her at all, even though I was the one who helped her through her feelings when she needlessly cheated on Falinnor multiple times. And when she ended up at my house black-out drunk, high as The Skies, and worried that she pollinated with a random tree being. Nobody was ready to bear fruit in the places she'd gone to in those times; to meditate, she said. To find herself. Nonsense.

"You didn't follow Ceceir's orders to stay," Twyla chimed in, fueling my rising anger. I never gave any orders. Or did I? The events of last night were fuzzy in my mind.

"Those were not Ceceir's orders. Liar. Don't you realize you all silently pressured her to stay at a stranger's house?" Her voice did not rise.

"She wasn't pressured. Those were her orders, and we followed what she said." It was Twyla's voice, but not her words.

"That doesn't sound like Ceceir's orders to me. It would be ridiculous if she ever ordered something like that," Venus replied, stepping out of her voice range. Every time they said "order", a flame was ignited in my soul, "Weren't you the one who said Ceceir was useless besides the fact that she can fight and read the prophecy?"

We were all clearly tense from last night. The decision of staying or not staying in Jee Sebaiwhyn's house, getting captured, Icarus getting knocked out. Too many events in too little time. We were in a state of hostility, a bad mood that made us say skewed versions of the truth. Everyone was right in their point of view, but I would draw the line at getting disrespected in an argument as petty as this one.