Goraldia: The Element Wielders

9: Loss

Our rush became a saunter because of our new, very shaken up party member. She's still right next to me with my arm around her. We had walked along for quite some time. It was far into the night, and she and I both felt it. "Icarus, can we please stop here?" I plead him. 

"Further," he responds.

"But we're both deathly tired," I retort. She nods.

Icarus turns his head to us. "Further," he presses. "We're still in their territory. Would you like to wake up in a net? Or impaled? Or really even just dead?"

"It's ok, I can walk some more," she tells me.

"Are you sure?" I ask her. She nods.

"Ok then. Get us out of their territory quickly, please," I instruct him.

"The territory is not that much longer, and it is very late. They won't follow us," Icarus says to soothe us. He was right. About 2 miles of walking later, we came to the edge of the forest. 

"We should be ok here. But no fires. That's too much light for this much darkness," he says miserably. "I can take watch for the rest of the night." Those words were music to my ears.

I nestled myself against a tree on the edge of the forest. She sits on the grass for a while, then lays down in it. Uhhhhhhh, rest, I think to myself. I have a feeling she thinks this as well. In my stationary position, it doesn't take much to get to sleep. I start to drift off. My exhaustion coma comes to me at last, even leaning against an uncomfortable tree.

I wake up when I hear a girl's words. She tried to get my attention, and it worked. She whispers to me, "hey, I'm kinda cold. Can I... sit with you?"

In my semi comatose haze I whisper back, "Yeah, sure. C'mere," and gesture. She comes over and sits besides me. A few seconds later she scoots in closer. I'm nodding off again when she gets even closer. I put my arms around her, and she rests her head on my chest. I stay up a little longer, feeling her breathing. It is oddly comforting, feeling someone else breathe. Her breath evens out and slows. She had fallen asleep in my arms. In that moment I only feel loved.

Only a few seconds later, though, the feeling of sleep returns and ousts the previous feeling of being loved. I drift off once more and successfully fall asleep. We sleep peacefully to morning.

We get startled awake abruptly. A loud swooshing sound appears out of nowhere. I look over to where the sound was to find Icarus in a net. He was struggling on the ground, yelling and thrashing wildly. SHIT! ICARUS! I think. I get up quickly and run over.

"NO!" he yells at me. "LEAVE!" He instructs us forcefully, but fear is in his eyes, his face, and even his soul. I look into the forest to find people running towards us. 

"ICARUS, NO! I CAN'T LEAVE YOU!" I howl at him.

"GET TO MATHOLM! FIND FROMINON! LEAVE ME! NOW!" 

The people chasing us were reloading the net cannon. We really can not stay. "ICARUS, I WILL COME BACK FOR YOU!" I yell to him.

I run over to the girl and pull her forward. We run away, as fast as she could go. Tears well up and I helplessly try to blink them away. I just had to run forward. I knew the city was in front of me, in the distance. 

Another loud KCHUNK was heard and I push her away. We had gotten far enough away that it would be inaccurate, but the net manages to reach me and tangles my feet and lower legs. I fall hard to the ground. She yells, "OH GOD, NO!" and helps me unravel the netting. In the state of panic, it takes longer than it should have, but we get it off me fairly quickly. I get up and we continue running. We don't stop until a few minutes after we see them stop their chase. After that we walk briskly towards Matholm.

Both shaken up, we don't talk. At least that is until she breaks the silence. "Hey. You said you forgot your name, but then you gave me your name. Why is that?" I think about this for a while. Then i finally respond, "It's not really my name." Now? Do I give her my name now? "I just... picked that as my name. For here." That was true enough. We walk in silence once more.

"Max," she says abruptly. "My name. My name... I think, is Max."

"Max. That's pretty cool," I state. "Max is a fitting name." We walk along a bit longer. I try to think of any Maxs that I might have known. I couldn't remember. My recollection seems to drift away further the longer I'm here. "Max," I start, "I'm going to show you something. It's super weird, but you need to see this." Max looks at me confused. "Please stand back," I instruct, and she obliges.

I stand straight and prepare myself. "I promise you, everything you see is very much real. I need to show you this before we get to the city, so that you'll understand who you are a bit more." 

I watch my surroundings very closely so I don't catch anything on fire. Ok, take it nice and slow. I call up the energy slowly. I don't know how much power I've gained from the arc lightning, so I need to be very careful. I force my energy to my arms. Almost as if I taunted my own power, lightning encapsulates my arms. Woah, I've gained a lot of power. I look over to Max, who is, as I had guessed, stunned in awe and confusion. I raise my hands above my head and cause bent arcs of lightning to roll upwards and dissipate. 

Finished, I tell Max, "Your turn," and she just stares at me. "I don't know what element you have, but everyone is different." 

"O... Ok." And before I can give any instructions, she holds out her right hand.

"Wha - hey, wait," I say looking at her, but she is set on her path. Her hand starts to get red, like it was held in hot water for a while. Her cheeks get red as well as she focuses. Then they get redder, glowing like metal in a fire. Out of nowhere, fire starts rolling around her fingers and palm. "W - um... ok. I guess you figured it out," I say out of astonishment. "Looks like I won't be needing to start the fires, now."

She looks up at me. "How am I doing this?"

"Well, you, uh, controlled your energy to create friction to the point of spontaneous combustion," I say, very slowly. I don't have a single clue how she did it. I just took an educated guess. "Anyway, we need to get to Matholm now, so you need proper clothes." As I wonder how we're going to accomplish this, I feel a bulge inside my shirt. The bulge was a sack of money. Icarus had split his money in half and set it inside my shirt before I put it on. Thanks, Ic. "Here's the money that I'll buy you clothes with."

"Ok."

"I'll leave you outside the city for a while, so you need to stay hidden."

"Ok."

At that, we continue walking to Matholm, where we would find Frominon and continue our quest.