Kindred Spirits

Opening Up

  I showed him around the cottage, ending in the kitchen where I started making dinner for us. Collins would use this for small getaways occasionally, with it being rented out for most of the year. It was always stocked with groceries when someone would stay, though I had contacted Collins to inform him that I would be staying for the weekend.

  Bucky wandered around the living room, looking at the various pictures on the wall. I popped the chicken in the oven as he called out to me.

  "Who's this?" I looked over to find him standing in front of a framed charcoal drawing. I approached it slowly, barely looking at him as I reached out to ghost my hand across the glass.

  "His name was Lykon," I felt my eyes welling up as I looked at the drawing. I had made it about a year before he had died.

  I let my hand fall from the frame, taking in a deep breath as I moved back into the kitchen. I filled up the kettle and set it on the stove to let it boil. I could feel James watching me as I got two cups ready for tea. 

  "We found him about a year after Andy found me," I started quietly, my eyes on the kettle as my mind wandered.

The dreams led us to a small hut on the outer edges of the land of Judea, a slave housing for the wheat plantation surrounding it. We entered the hut, revealing a very sick woman lying on a cot, a young man sitting at her side. He muttered softly in Aramaic. At the sound of our footsteps, he turned as if to shout, but the words died on his tongue when he saw us. It was silent as he looked between the two of us before he stood slowly.

  "You've come for me," he whispered, "You've come to steal me away."

  "We do not steal those that could come willingly," I spoke softly so as not to startle him. Our eyes locked as I spoke and I was startled to feel a jolt in my heart. 

  "Lies," his voice was uncertain as he watched me, "The shaman says my dreams are an ill omen."

  "Was that before or after you told him you had died and returned?" Andy's question startled him, his eyes widening and darting between us.

  "We know because we are the same," I said, drawing his eyes back to me. I held out my arm, drawing a blade and dragging the edge across it. His protests were never voiced as he watched the wound heal before his eyes.

  "We've seen what happened to you," his eyes met mine again as I spoke again, "How the men that own you forced you to fight your own people, how they sold off your sister to enter you into the fights. How they stabbed you in the back when you demanded to see her, tossing your body into a field and leaving you to die."

  "You know about us too," He looked over to Andy, nodding his head slowly.

  "You fought for your people," we both nodded, "You were alone for a long time before you found her," he motioned to me, his eyes one again meeting mine.

  "We're here to make sure that you're not alone."

My mind came back at the screaming of the tea kettle, and I rushed to remove it from the flame. I prepared our tea and handed him his mug, adding two scoops of sugar to his and a splash of cream to mine. I took a sip before continuing my explanation.

  "We freed his sister and mother, though his mother passed on shortly after. We traveled for a few years with his sister, before she fell in love and married a man in Somalia. She was able to see us married though."

  I smiled fondly, taking another sip as the memory took over.

 

 I wore traditional Somali wedding garb, my hair braided down my back. I had been adorned in several gold accessories, gifts from Andy and Lykon. We stood before the Imam as he read from the Quran, his sister's family watching with smiles on their faces.

  Andy brought us the rings that we had commissioned, something physical for us to symbolize our love for one another. They were simple gold bands, but they were worth more than words could express to us. We exchanged our promises as we placed the rings on each others fingers, our eyes filled with love for one another.

  I emerged from the memory at the sound of a timer going off. I pulled the chicken from the oven, pulling two plates from a nearby cupboard. I served us both and we ate in silence.

  We cleaned up the kitchen, the leftovers to the fridge and the dishes scrubbed. I served us a scotch in the sitting room after sparking up a fire. I took a silent gulp as I stared into the flames.

  "We were in Italy, during the Renaissance. A war had broken out between a neighboring city-state. We were fighting as a favor to the General, someone that had generously hosted us in our time. Everything was normal, we were fighting, winning even. But everything went wrong in an instant."

  I parried an enemy blade, plunging my knife into their abdomen. A look around revealed that few enemies remained, the majority retreating into the woods. Andy and Quyhn were readily dispatching the men surrounding them, and Lykon finished the last man standing against him brutally. 

  I wiped the sweat from my brow, looking out to the sky, wondering what our supper would be that night. A gurgling sound had me spinning around. An enemy soldier had pierced Lykon through the back. I started to smile, but the alarmed look in his eye had me moving closer instead, sprinting closer as he was shoved off the blade and fell to his knees.

  I knelt beside him, tears clogging my throat as I watched his wound. I could feel my chest seize as my eyes refused to believe what they were seeing.

 "He's not healing," it was barely a whisper, but it was heard as Andy and Quynh scrambled closer in disbelief. I cupped his face in mine, pleading with him to wake up, screaming to the sky when he wouldn't move. Our allies stayed away at the raw grief I was expressing, my cries echoing out into surrounding valleys.

"I don't remember exactly what happened after that," A tear trailed down my face, though I made no move to remove it. "Andy said that I had flown into a rage, following the retreating enemies like a woman possessed. I slaughtered them, sometimes not even using my weapons, coating myself in their blood. When I had killed them all, I refused to calm down. Andy said that she and Quyhn had to nearly decapitate me to get me to stop. They chained me up, fearing that I had lost my sanity."

  I looked over at him, his heartbreak at my loss shining clearly in my eyes. "It's never easy to lose someone, I've lost thousands in the ages I've been alive, but the hardest was the man that I thought I would spend an eternity with. He wasn't supposed to die."

  My voice cracked on the last word, opening the impending flood of tears. I sobbed, my hands covering my mouth as I attempted to quiet the sobs wracking my body. I didn't respond to the arms enveloping me or the gentle hands rubbing along my back. He just consoled me as I relived the grief that had left it's deepest scar across my heart.