Bond Breakers

Island Travels Part Four

Serensia in Tark

Tark wasn't anything like her parents had described. They'd called it a primitive society, caught up in the past. Unable to advance to the ways of Aradia. However, Serensia found it almost as charming as its inhabitants. The city was built into the canopies of the huge trees, all interconnected to the centre, where the largest tree; a two-hundred-foot behemoth with a trunk bigger than the castle of Aradia and probably older than it. The trunk served as the gateway. The hollowed-out trunk had been rigged with pulleys and platforms that lifted her into Tark with no magic, only intelligent architecture that portrayed a population that found ways to do what magic could. Her parents might've called that primitive, but as Sulphites it was expected. Tarkian's were stereotyped as mindless oafs, servants, the brute force behind their magic, and yet the designs around her spoke to an intelligence far greater than magic. Magic was impressive, difficult to control, dangerous, but it did everything for Sulphites, it made travel, building, living as easy as breathing. Tark had evolved without it, still, finding ways to do what magic could. The bridges that connected the tree-city; revolving slatted planks were built with pulleys, that when pulled moved people across without them having to walk. The trees were lit with a type of sap that changed colour based on the temperature, but the dimness was made brighter by a clear material that they had discovered by some process with the beach sand and placed the sap in. Kaijan had called it glass.

Kaijan...

She had spent two days with the Prince of Kava and found him as pleasant as she'd always imagined he'd be. The entire Sulphite community bemoaned the fact that their prince was not just a sympathiser to the other races. But a disbeliever of theirs. He dressed as non-sulphite as possible, wore his hair in an un-Sulphite fashion and worst of all he followed none of their practices. He didn't pray hourly or worship the proclaimed gods of the world. And neither did she.

He had found her far more interesting after she had bypassed a session of prayer. And she, well, despite having a job to do she was a little taken with him. Not because he was also an abdicate, but he was witty, sharp tongued and hilarious, his presence was infectious. Every Tarkian seemed to love him and he, there was, no other word, but; belonged here.

Then again Khumo, the prince of Tark was his best friend. When she'd started researching the leaders of Aradia and learnt of their friendship, she'd always wondered how it had worked. But being in Tark, and seeing the interactions between Kaijan and its people, it was simple. The goofy jokes and that deep laughter that filled the canopies. It made the friendship easy to picture.

"Seren," Kaijan was peering in through the window of her tree-room, one of the millions of hollowed out quarters in the Centre, "what are you doing?"

She closed the book she was working in and glared at him. 'It's rude not to knock."

"Oh," his eyes widened in surprise, something she liked about him, his eyes were unlike that of a normal Sulphite, similar to hers they were wider, and held shades of lighter brown, making them look like twin tanzanites.

She snorted; it was impossible not to laugh at the expression on his face.

"What are you laughing at?"

"You," she swung off the hammock with far more grace than she had the first time.

"It's rude to laugh at people," he countered.

She chuckled. "What's happening?"

"Nothing," he said biting his lips, "I came to see if you wanted to take a walk, I wanted to show you something?"

"Sure," she said trying to hide the smile threatening to curve her lips.

He practically beamed.

Serensia, like a true lady jumped out of the window ignoring the heavy door completely.