Knightingale [THE FIRST DRAFT.]

CHAPTER SEVEN

"One stares into the fire for a multitude of reasons."

[ THIS BOOK is available illustrated on my KOFI @/2ndstarart ]

The firelight flickered and danced as its flames roared and crackled, suffocating the air around it as it swallowed as much air as it could muster. Gale stared intently into its hearth, as she had been since the two first sat down. Adric estimated this to be hours long, surprised that the fire had kept and the moon was still high in the sky; it had only been around ten minutes.

He wasn't sure why she was staring at the fire, he did think for some time she was staring through it but a quick crane of his neck told him that nothing lay beyond it. In actuality, she was scrying, but neither knew what that meant at this moment.

She had a habit of this, having watched women from her community do it every night and she never knew what for, but they would pack up and leave quickly if one uttered a word of warning. She would watch the fire, hoping for something to appear to her, she didn't quite know what. Nothing ever did, however, perhaps it was due to the creature, pruning her feathers and clicking her beak every so often. Or perhaps the boy who couldn't sit still.

"So..." Adric rocked back and forth with his legs crossed, his lips pursed as his words trailed off and he tried to initiate conversation. "What are you doing here?"

"Same as you." The girl quipped back, not wanting to tear her eyes away from the flames. Adric's eyes lit up, jumping to his knees in excitement. However, as he did so, the fire seemingly reached out to him and licked at his fingertips, which flailed around as he moved.

"Ow!" He recoiled as did the fire, which seemed to diminish in size drastically. As he blew on his fingers, Gale closed her eyes briefly, which seemed to be the first time her eyelids had closed in a while. She huffed before standing tall, understanding that we fire watching was officially interrupted this time.

Adric watched her every move as she walked away from the fire, seemingly looking into the darkness surrounding them. He looked to the magpie for some resemblance of conversation, but the poor thing had fallen asleep, having been up for much longer than the two of them.

He was alone at this moment. As he trilled his lips, creating a horrendously high-pitched noise in Gale's opinion, he had time to think. This time wasn't so long as he turned to the girl inspecting the trees. "Why are you here?"

Gale rolled her eyes once again, what Adric hadn't seen was the iron grip on her dagger. She sensed something beyond the darkness.

"I already answered that." She growled, turning away from the dense forest and back at the boy.

"No." He started, looking down at his hands, which couldn't seem to stay still. "Why are you here, with me." Gale slumped back next to him, a sigh didn't go unnoticed as it slipped through her mouth. "You could've left me, killed me even! The magpie knows you, you said she told you about me." Gale swallowed hard, looking to the dozing bird for back up but when silence came, she knew she was on her own.

"That is correct." She answered truthfully and earnestly, looking back towards the fire as she did so.

Adric cocked an eyebrow and asked, "You can... understand her?"

"Sure." She said bluntly. Adric hadn't another word to say, if he had thought for a moment he would have perhaps put two and two together but as silence lulled between them, his mind remained quiet as well.

Gale's grey eyes remained on the fire. She saw a blur of red, orange and yellow like the sunset she had never truly admired or the sunrise she couldn't bask in.

"So you're looking for Seraphina too?" Adric interrupted her gaze once more, asking once again the question that Gale had answered.

"Yes, Adric." She hissed.

Adric pushed further. "Why?"

Gale turned to Adric once again, her long lock of hair falling in front of her face. "My people sent me."

Adric repeated himself like a toddler, who wasn't quite used to the world yet. "Why?" In his defence, he didn't know a fraction of what his world truly was.

Gale mimicked him, looking down at the ground, her hands, which were wrapped in rippings of black fabric, were like stone; cold and still. "That's nice."

"Can I save her?" The young boy broke the silence, his voice meek. He squeezed his lips into an awkward smile as he looked at her. The girl didn't copy him.

"What?" Her face was the most expressive he had seen her as her eyebrows furrowed and her top lip lifted in confusion.

He took a deep breath, turning his whole body to her, "When we find her, I want to save her. To be the first person she sees." He didn't see this as selfish, in fact, he didn't see anything he did as selfish necessarily, but rather he was so focused on his own endeavours. He hadn't even thought if it would ruin her own chances.

Thankfully, she simply replied, "Sure."

Silence fell once again, the two exchanging awkward glances as the fire crackled, almost mimicking that of footsteps on twigs. Gale lowered her guard for the first time that night and she faced him, taking in his entire appearance.

He was scruffy and dirty, dressed in shorts that were wholly inappropriate for the forest. Not that she could talk, a long billowing cape, puff-legged trousers and a long tunic would also be seen as such yet the difference is that Gale had learnt to fight and manoeuvre the world in such an outfit. She had worn the same thing almost every day since birth. Dark and covered was perfect for hiding oneself.

She noticed almost immediately his armour or perhaps lack thereof. She focused on his shoulders, the engraved feathers glinting in the firelight. "Your armours on wrong."

It would be nice to describe how lost in thought Adric was, but in truth, he wasn't thinking of any one specific thing, rather little things, like magpie asleep to the side of them, Mallory at home, probably worrying about him, Edie doing the opposite. "Huh?" Fell from his lips.

Gale sighed and reached forward, shuffling along the dirt to get closer to the boy, she unbuckled the leather straps from his chest and took the metal into her hands.

For a moment, her thumb grazed against the engraving, before positioning them on his shoulders. "This is supposed to go across your chest" She took the longest strap on the front and back, tightening it enough so it wouldn't ride up nor down. "and these ones..." she continued, taking the two small straps from directly underneath the plates, "Go underneath your arms so it stays put." She buckled them tightly.

Adric eyes hadn't left her face, not watching anything she was showing him nor taking any focus on which straps she was moving. It was quite a surprise to him when he looked down at himself.

"How do you know this?"

She let out an amused scoff that she attempted to hide as a breath. "How do you not?"

"Thank you." He smiled involuntarily.

Gale quickly turned away from him, a noise sounding in the distance only she had heard. "I don't want you dying on me because of your shoddy armour." She muttered; eyes focused in the distance.

"You should sleep." She ordered and Adric didn't argue. He was unnerved by her darting eyes, or perhaps the lack of. She was constantly looking far off, her eyes becoming glassy as she did so as if she wasn't looking at all.

He thought about her eyes as he lay on the ground that night and as he closed his own he saw his sister's eyes, a dark sky of twinkling stars when she smiled. As he slipped off to sleep a sea of chestnut brown with waves of green crept through his mind, reminding him of the girl that perhaps didn't care he had even left.